New Games

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• The TGS 2011 Community Choice Award!
• Crysis on consoles, available today
• Wow: Unreal Engine 3 supports Adobe Flash
• Take a peek at Skyrim's Achievements
• Video Game Voters Network and the fight against stupid
• Mortal Kombat Klassic fight stick comes with 3 MK games
• Problems with RAGE on PC? Grab these new AMD drivers
• Obscurity: Nobody has ever heard of Lemmings
• New Disney trademark for 'Castle of Illusion'
• SimCity 2000 Special Edition now out on Good Old Games
• NYCC Mass Effect exclusive: Invasion #1 comic book
• Review: Dark Souls
• Rovio excitedly details the Angry Birds movie
• Honor 15 years of Tomb Raider with an updating gallery
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier deploying in March 2012
• Buy & Sell games at Destructoid, win a 3DS (who won?)
• Live show: Calmly playing Rage on Mash Tactics
• Trion Worlds to speak at NYCC about future of Rift, more
• The new Portal 2 add-on is ready for your Peer Review

The TGS 2011 Community Choice Award! Posted: 04 Oct 2011 04:00 PM PDT The Tokyo Game Show may have closed its doors a couple weeks ago, but the Destructoid community has been hard at work ever since, voting for its favorite game. There were a ton of great choices on display this year, but after the dust settled, the real winner was clear: Ni no Kuni! Between the gorgeous, vibrant art style and challenging RPG gameplay, Ni no Kuni turned a lot of heads at TGS, and the chiseled noggin of own Editor-in-Chief was no exception. Dale's preview highlighted what's shaping up to be a real treat for gamers around the world when it hits Japan on November 17 and stateside early next year, and we couldn't be more excited to get our hands on it! So congratulations to Level-5 and Ni no Kuni, winner of the Destructoid Community Choice Award for TGS 2011!

Crysis on consoles, available today Posted: 04 Oct 2011 03:30 PM PDT FPS Crysis was always a PC thing, but now it's also a console thing as of today. Yeah, it's not going to look like it would on a high-end PC rig, but CryEngine3 is definitely doing some fancy stuff with the visuals. You can head online to nab your copy for Xbox 360 or PS3 for a the super-reasonable price of 1,600 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360 or $20 on PSN.  Enjoy this new trailer for the console release.

Wow: Unreal Engine 3 supports Adobe Flash Posted: 04 Oct 2011 03:00 PM PDT Epic Games' Unreal Engine is everywhere, even in your browser. Crazy. Epic's Tim Sweeney showed off UE3 running fully inside an Adobe Flash-based environment during a keynote at Adobe MAX 2011, an annual conference for developers and designers. The live demo was actually FPS Unreal Tournament 3, running with enhanced graphics in the newly released Adobe Flash Player 11. This means that Flash is now capable of running games made for consoles and other platforms, and they'll actually look like console-quality games. Need proof? Check out the screenshots in our gallery, taken straight from Sweeney's presentation. You'll see that they're running in Firefox. Epic says that UE3 will usher in the leap from simplistic 2D game experiences to full-blown 3D gaming on the Web. Flash Player 11 allows 1,000 times faster 2D and 3D graphics rendering performance over Flash Player 10. Developers can now animate millions of objects with smooth 60 frames per second rendering and deliver console-quality games on Mac OS, Windows and connected televisions. "With UE3 and Flash, games built for high-end consoles can now run on the Web or as Facebook apps, reaching an enormous user base," said Sweeney. "This totally changes the playing field for game developers who want to widely deploy and monetize their games." This development could change gaming in a big way.

Take a peek at Skyrim's Achievements Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:30 PM PDT Do people still get pumped when they see Trophy/Achievement lists ahead of time? That used to be the norm, though I suspect enthusiasm has died down considerably in recent years. If you don't mind quest-name spoilers, the Achievements for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim might be worth looking over. These largely seem to be the same objectives that Bethesda has always had us complete. Leveling, exploring, stealing -- that sort of thing. I do love it when open-ended games try to get you to tinker with mechanics you might otherwise avoid, like "Hard Worker: Chop wood, mine ore, and cook food." Really, I just want to go around being a bastard to Skyrim's citizens. None of these seem to get in the way of that goal, so no complaints here. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Achievements [Eurogamer -- Thanks, de5gravity]

Video Game Voters Network and the fight against stupid Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:00 PM PDT Nintendo isn't the only one who wants to make gamers into ambassadors, but unlike the 3DS variety, nobody is giving away free videogames if you become a Video Game Voters Network Ambassador. The program, which is open to any college or university student in the United States, is aimed at educating interested parties about the facts and myths related to the gaming industry.  The Ambassador part comes from recruitment, which is part of the goal here. Students who get involved will be encouraged to organize events and draw in new members. I'm not sure how I feel about this whole thing. On the one hand its good to squash the stupid lies that certain people tell about our beloved industry, and it may serve as a way for gamers to get together and hang out. On the other hand I have some doubts about how popular this will actually be. Maybe I'm just cynical. So what do you think? Is this a good idea? Would you join up?

Mortal Kombat Klassic fight stick comes with 3 MK games Posted: 04 Oct 2011 01:30 PM PDT The Mortal Kombat Klassic Fight Stick is now available for PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360. It looks kind of like the old MK arcade cabs, but features arcade parts from Suzo Happ and has a velvet-wrapped foam underside for lap play. Fancy!  We wanted to let you know that your $129 gets you more than the stick. In the box you'll get a code to download the recently released Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, the digital compilation of the first three games of the franchise. This fight stick is available at retailers now, and can be ordered direct from PDP.

Problems with RAGE on PC? Grab these new AMD drivers Posted: 04 Oct 2011 01:00 PM PDT We've heard reports that PC users are going up against a number of technical issues with RAGE, which publisher Bethesda Softworks has attributed to driver problems. No matter the cause, it's disappointing to see any game -- especially one as high-profile as this -- run into launch-week trouble. Fortunately, new AMD Catalyst drivers are out, and those seem to be helping remedy texture pop-in and unstable frame rates; Giant Bomb is reporting noticeable improvements. Those in need of NVIDIA drivers can find the latest ones here. What has your experience with the game been like?

Obscurity: Nobody has ever heard of Lemmings Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:30 PM PDT [For your Bloggers Wanted assignment last week, you were asked to write about a game you thought was relatively obscure; one that a lot of your peers likely hadn't played or even heard of. In today's blog, Knutaf describes a Lemmings game that I bet most of you didn't even know existed. Want to see your own blog on the front page? Write a blog on the current topic: Villains. -- JRo] My childhood is riddled with strange, obscure PC games. The problem was picking one that A) my inadequate, blurry memory can remember, and B) I could get working on my current computer so I could show it in all its glory. Well, I narrowed down the list to just a few games, then picked one. I picked Lemmings, a game which is so strange and badly designed that -- wait, what? You've heard of Lemmings? I thought I was the only one who'd played -- OH. I read that wrong. This is Lemmings Paintball. Well, that's basically the same game as Lemmings, right? Uh, no, it really isn't. Unlike the wildly popular original Lemmings and many of its spinoffs that preserved the core gameplay mechanic, Lemmings Paintball was actually a totally different game in every way imaginable... except the characters. They're still stupid rodents. (Nothing against rodents, mind you. Just, lemmings are kind of dumb, at least in video games.) So what is the paintball variety of Lemmings? We just don't know. At a glance, it looks like a 3/4 top-down isometric action platformer shooter thingy. Actually, that's a pretty good description of it, I guess. Is it a good game? Well, yeah, I kind of think it is. You control up to four lemmings in a squad. In every level you're dropped unceremoniously out of a random box that appears in the sky and have to make your way through the level and grab up to four flags. The gameplay is pretty simple. You click somewhere, and your lemming attempts to walk there. He's pretty short, though, and in typical lemming fasion can't climb much. And roving through most of the level are evil lemmings (as in all good games, people on the other team are simply evil) that will attack you with their eponymous paintball guns as you approach. Of course, you're also armed with such a gun and can squirt paint at them first. So screwed. How did I let this happen!? Actually, those red lemmings are heinously good shots; if you're standing still, they will nail you in a hurry. Pretty quickly you start to develop this technique of dodging side to side while shooting, which works well in most situations. The charm of this game comes partly from its aesthetics and partly from its level design. Aesthetically, I love that there are several different environment skins: snowy, grassy, military base, multicolored abstract blocks, etc. I like the triumphant backflip animation my lemming does when he gets the flag, accompanied by a diminutive "Yippee!" I like the satisfying splat of the paintball against the enemy. I even like the unmistakable creak of the gates opening. Just all in all, the sounds and graphics, though not oustanding in any way, just work. The levels keep introducing new elements, which are the building blocks of the puzzles and environments. First they introduce gates controlled by switches. Then they show you hidden panels (like, really well hidden) that you walk over to trigger switches. Then come blocks that raise and lower according to some trigger. Then sliding panels that, once you enter them, you slip all the way to the end of some route. Then balloons that you grab, which carry you to predetermined end-points. I came across a catapult which flung you into the midst of enemies! There were trampolines that bounced you a predictable distance... What I'm trying to convey is how all the levels are filled with what I can only think of in my mind as "little delights." You never know what combination of gadgets you will play with in the next level. My other lemming is just off screen to the left flipping the switch. And they use all these different elements pretty well. For example, in one level a lemming flips a switch to toggle the position of alternating raised or lowered walls, so that a teammate can get past. It's a pretty simple "puzzle", but it's made more interesting by the fact that enemy lemmings are patrolling the route amidst the moving walls. If your timing is bad, the enemies will actually be standing on top of the walls and have very easy shots at you. In another level, flipping a switch does seemingly nothing... except, if you awaken your sense of exploration and experimentation, you'll find that a particular walkway has now become slippery, so you can slide off a ramp and catch some sweet air on the way to the flag. If only that were a slick ramp... Another thing I like is that, for the player with a sharp eye, there are shortcuts in plain sight in some of the levels, but the particular layout that they've put in naturally guides your eye to some other, longer, more perilous path. In fact, several of the levels seem to have multiple paths through, and it's fun to experiment to see which are the riskiest. Despite all these fun and interesting things, some of the design decisions have that primitive quality that we feel we've left behind with modern games. If you get shot by an enemy lemming, you usually have to start the entire level over. And some of the hit detection is spotty; your lemming may walk off a cliff due to what seemed like an innocuous click. And if you're controlling multiple lemmings in your team at once, they really do what you say, not what you meant. The sympathetic critic in me wants to say say that maybe this is thematic, in keeping with the chronically braindead nature of the creature that is the lemming. Suddenly, a catapult! What? As an aside, this is a pretty old game. When I bought it as a kid, it came on a CDROM, but when I look at the size on the disk, there's only 15 MB there! I guess back then it was either 10 floppies or a CD, huh? As another aside, it ran without any issue on Windows 8. That was pretty surprising! I don't want to call this game seminal or important or anything (the game flopped; I'm writing about it in a blog about obscurity), but you'll find most of the level design elements present in contemporary games, such as the coordinated timing-based puzzles between multiple teammates. This game is not fantastic, but it's not bad. Good luck finding a copy, but if you do, I promise you at least ten minutes of fun out of it.

New Disney trademark for 'Castle of Illusion' Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:15 PM PDT Remember Castle of Illusion for Sega Genesis? That game was a graphical wonder back in the day. I made everyone that came over look at it. If someone didn't like it, I swore not to talk to them anymore, much like how I still won't talk to people that stir their food before eating it.  Disney filed a trademark for the term for use with video game cartridges, discs, and software, says Siliconera. Maybe Disney is planning on a remake, or maybe a digital re-release. I'd take either. This old 2D platformer was way better than Epic Mickey.

SimCity 2000 Special Edition now out on Good Old Games Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT SimCity is a series that has an amazing legacy, but with no new installments for a while, it's a good thing that Good Old Games is releasing a special edition of SimCity 2000 to remind us about the simple joys of urban planning and disaster management. SimCity 2000 (which was released in 1995, go figure) was the first game in the series to use the now ubiquitous isometric viewpoint as opposed to the top-down viewpoint from previous games. Also included were scenarios that reflected natural disasters from history as well as some completely mental ones, like Hollywood being attacked by a giant robot. The title is available now for $5.99 and it'd be a shame to miss out on this great slice of city building nostalgia. Best of all, the special edition comes with a graphics editor that allows you to modify the in-game buildings to your own desires. Want to make a replica of your high-school and see it destroyed by a UFO invasion? Dream no more!

NYCC Mass Effect exclusive: Invasion #1 comic book Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:45 AM PDT Going to New York Comic-Con? See you there? If you're a Mass Effect fan, you'll want to get your hands on this NYCC exclusive. A special edition of Mass Effect: Invasion #1, the first installment in a series of ME comic books based on Mass Effect 2, will be available at the event. The special edition of Mass Effect: Invasion #1 features brand new cover art designed by the Mass Effect team and signed exclusively by Mass Effect Lead Writer, Mac Walters. The special edition will be available in a limited run, so you can only get it from October 13–16. For everyone else, Mass Effect: Invasion #1 will be available at comic book retailers starting October 19, 2011.

Review: Dark Souls Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:35 AM PDT First, allow me to begin with a caveat; I have not completed Dark Souls. I have invested over 90 hours of play into the game, exploring the vast majority of its world and facing off against (if not defeating) many of the boss enemies. I am confident that I am capable of rendering a fair verdict based upon the knowledge I have. If you are not, I respect that and ask that you please enjoy one of the many fine reviews available from players more capable of completing this quest than I have been. You are undead, one of the chosen few tasked with saving a world which has very nearly seen its demise. The primeval, life-giving power of fire which holds back the darkness threatening to once again consume all existence, has almost flickered out and you are the prophesied last hope, sojourning to the legendary land of Lordran to reignite the flame. Between you and the fate of the world lies hundreds of mindless beasts intent on killing you, which they will succeed in time and again. Dark Souls (PlayStation 3 [reviewed], Xbox 360) Developer: From Software Publisher: Namco Bandai Released: October 4, 2011 MSRP: $59.99 Dark Souls is vicious and unforgiving in the challenge it presents. At the beginning, you are weak and anything is capable of bringing a swift end. When you have developed your abilities and mastery of the controls, you will be able to swiftly cut down most common enemies, making the greater threat your own carelessness and over-confidence. And no matter how big or bad you think you are, there's always something (or someone) bigger and badder. The complexity of the mechanics at play is vast. Behind everything are souls, the currency of Lordran. Souls are accumulated from fallen enemies or by using consumable items found in the world and are spent on everything. Improving your character's eight basic stats, upgrading and repairing equipment, purchasing items and information from NPC characters; all of these things require the expenditure of souls. In the case of leveling up stats, the expense of doing so rapidly rises with each level, starting at a few hundred and in excess of ten thousand by your fiftieth point. Weapons upgrade with the cost of souls and components and require finding an NPC blacksmith for every five levels you improve them. And then you have to be able to carry all the crap you're wearing and still walk. There is a lot of growing you'll do and you'll need souls for all of it. So, souls are valuable and the reason why Dark Souls is such an intense challenge that always pushes you to improve your performance. When you inevitably die, any souls you were carrying are left a few steps back from where you met your end. They can be recollected, provided you return to this point and grab them before you are killed again, the bloodstain only appearing at the point of your most recent death. Success in Dark Souls means always moving forward. It means always learning from every experience that you have and applying that learned knowledge towards, at a minimum, achieving as much success as you have in previous efforts if not more. It makes your achievements deeply satisfying when you earn them and your failures all the more personal as they represent a very real loss of time and energy. Lordran is an amazing world, a dark honeycomb of twisting paths and chambers. Right from your arrival (following a brief tutorial stage), you are free to begin exploring with three clearly available paths and it only continues to branch out from there. There's a fantastic breadth of variety in the regions, though all evoke a sense of isolation and fear in their atmosphere. All of this world is broken and ruined. Environment design and enemy placement are by far the most impressive aspects of Dark Souls. Every corner has a new surprise, a new opportunity to meet an untimely end from an ambushing enemy or trap. It's consistently challenging and even nerve-wracking to push into unknown territory and the game has no compunctions about bringing a swift end the moment you let your guard down. On the rare occasion that you can outwit the design and anticipate its next move, elation follows. Thankfully, Dark Souls does a very good job of never making you traverse too much of an area on one go. Bonfires littered around the world act as checkpoints, providing a safe haven to spend souls on increasing attributes and (once necessary items are acquired) improving equipment, as well as acting as a revival point to return to when killed. These bonfires, combined with frequent opportunities to open shortcuts ensure that you're never too far away from making progress. Which is a good thing, because you're going to have a hard enough time getting to the bosses, let alone getting back to them to fight a second or tenth time. Boss encounters usually end swiftly the first time, often only educating you in terms of how much time you have to dodge and in what direction it would be best to go immediately upon entering the room when you return. After that first failure, subsequent efforts will allow you to find environmental features to aid you in defense and combat opportunities while seeing the full range of attacks. Sometimes, the environment in a boss fight is really valuable. There are some very easy ways to eliminate certain bosses by getting a high vantage point and leaping on to them, but I found that most battles tended to come down to getting off to the side of an enemy, right next to them, and hacking away until they move. There are probably more elegant means of dispatching some that I never found, but most of the bosses are basically on your ass from the minute you step in the door and close range as quickly as possible whenever you can create some distance, which seemed to limit the potential of some approaches. Secrets are tucked away in great quantity throughout Lordran and the soft glow of an item in a seemingly inaccessible area is a tantalizing lure for the explorer. At times, however, the direction you're expected to take to reach a new location can be rather tough to spot. A fair bit of my play session was lost to wandering, pushing at edges and boundaries to find the door to a new area, having seemingly exhausted all my options only to discover an overlooked path some hours later when a message left by another player showed the way. This desire to make you discover how stuff works permeates the entire experience. Players exchange all sorts of information about impending threats, hidden treasures and the locations of valuable NPCs by leaving notes for other people to find. These glowing bits of text litter the world. Some warnings are helpful while other people use the system to grief anonymously but the value of it is undeniable. From Software is deliberately vague. The included six-page manual covers only the barest essentials, while in-game help clarifies how many of the character statistics affect one another. That's about all the help you're going to get directly from within the game, as the player is meant to discover much of how the things work on their own. The best it has to offer beyond that are the often cryptic rantings of the degenerating populace of non-player characters around the world. It's up to the players to learn and share knowledge of the game and its mechanics, which means this game is going to have some very long legs as all its secrets are uncovered. Let's take the game's most significant mechanic and valuable attribute, Humanity, as an example. Players in Dark Souls exist in two states, "Human" and "Hollow," with the latter being attained in death and reversed by sacrificing Humanity at bonfires. While alive, you are both more powerful and more at risk, as you open yourself up those from worlds beyond your own. Humanity can be earned slowly by defeating regular enemies, acquired through use of a consumable item or by invading the worlds of others and stealing it from them. And, like souls, humanity you carry is left where you die and must be collected again or lost forever. In a hollow state, you can only participate in online play when a living player calls for you, with the use of a summoning mark you leave in the world. Only when human can you take direct action to participate in  multiplayer, either invading the worlds of others as a phantom to steal their humanity or by calling phantoms to assist you in defeating the area boss. But, just as you can force yourself into someone else's world while alive, they can do the same to you and you'll be under the constant risk that an obscenely powerful player might find their way into your game and bring an untimely end to your progress. That's only the surface-level, direct function of Humanity. There's another, more subtle layer at work. It is also treated as an attribute of sorts, providing bonuses to a range of your other statistics. The full breadth of its effects are a secret closely held to the chest of From Software, but it has a very clear (and noted) effect on your item discovery rate. Having humanity on-hand provides a huge advantage in discovering items (just one point will give a 20% bonus, with smaller bonuses for additional points), crucial in the latter portions of the game as less common components become required to upgrade weapons to their absolute potential. This sense of vague mystery about the nature of some mechanics can go a bit too far at times, however. Players who wish to attempt to focus on Pyromancy, perhaps the most versatile of the game's three magical disciplines, will likely struggle for some time wondering what it's good for and how to improve one's ability. I traversed what I estimate to be twenty to thirty percent of the game before meeting an NPC who could teach new Pyromancy spells and increase the effectiveness of those I had. What really hurts the experience of Dark Souls is a number of technical faults and limitations. Some of these problems are of the sort where to point them out risks a derisive response in regards to the skill of the person saying them. That's the kind of reputation Demon's Souls had and it will persist amongst a certain class of entitled, skilled gamers for this game. I include them in this list because I am convinced that they are real and, in most cases, were witnessed by more than just myself. While Dark Souls looks damn good, it struggles to maintain its framerate whenever the action gets thick. Nearly every boss encounter I had suffered from dropped frames as the game strained to keep up with all the effects and animations. More often than not, it heightens the drama with fairly limited impact on the battle, but it's terrifying nonetheless to see the game drag when you have next to no health and are hammering on the button to heal. Collision detection seems generally good but sometimes doesn't feel right. On many occasions, I have seen the blade of my weapon pass through the head of an enemy following an attack when they should be most vulnerable, only to whiff (the white, winged beasts of Anor Londo provide a key example). Clipping can be a problem. Enemies will sometimes become stuck in walls, attacks that should be incapable of penetrating will still deal damage (easily exploited by the player). Sometimes enemies running into a wall will eventually clip through it, out of the level geometry and to their deaths. Inconsistencies are present regarding the penetration of terrain, also. Using a ranged weapon to fire through a gap in a wall or fence might work perfectly well in one place, while another spot five feet away with nearly identical design allows no trespass. Occasionally, you'll give the command for your character to attack or use an item and he'll stand there and do nothing for a bit before he decides to execute for no discernible reason. Enemy lock-on, essential for blocking attacks, often has difficulty switching between targets and can play hell on the camera in some circumstances The most egregious of all faults lies in the enemy AI. Nearly all creatures in Dark Souls are hyper-aggressive and many of them to a fault. Some will completely ignore a gap between you and them, running off a cliff. Creatures with wings who demonstrate flight will try to land where there is no solid surface fall to their deaths because they can't actually fly with any sense of freedom. Enemies will chase you doggedly, but only up to a defined point, whereupon they'll turn back and allow you to exploit their instinctive need to return. This is a particularly significant failure when it comes to the player's use of ranged weapons, as enemies can be easily lured and defeated one at a time, while his buddies sit and wait for their turn to notice you ten feet away. Worse still, attacking enemies from positions outside of their perceptive range generally provokes no response whatsoever. The patient player can usually fire less than two hundred arrows (at a cost of three souls each) from a distance and be guaranteed a challenge-free kill of the biggest beasts roaming Lordran, undermining the entire design of the game. That said, if you're shooting hundreds of cheap arrows into an enemy from a distance to kill it because it's just going to take it, you know as a player that you're taking advantage of the game. So it becomes a question as to whether the ability for the player to circumvent the programming limitations of the game to create an unintended advantage constitutes a failure on the part of the designers to account for it or a failure on the part of the player who is "cheating" to achieve success. That's a philosophical question which is probably too weighty for this review. Suffice to say that the issue exists in Dark Souls when it need not have. The other thing to keep in mind when addressing these faults is that, while they are many, I have spent 90 hours playing the game. These are developed over a long timeline and, at the end of the day, will affect the experience in different quantity for everyone. Occasionally annoying, often exploitable, the bugs are there but none of them are game-breaking. When they occasionally result in your untimely demise, they can be very frustrating. More often than not, something else probably would have killed you shortly anyway. The player who exploits the weak AI will help themselves a bit in pushing through the game, but won't do them a bit of good in preparing to deal with online incursions in the late game as they scramble to improve weapons and learn how not to be a lazy player. It's easy to make justifications for a game effectively designed around the idea of making the player's life Hell when it succeeds. Dark Souls does so where it needs to in order to appeal to an audience hungry for a follow up to Demon's Souls. It's engrossing, challenging and inspiring in its world but also a sticky mess of unexplained elements and niggling problems. It's still a good game, one that improves upon its impressive predecessor in many ways and fails to improve in some important ones. It calls for me to return, to finish what I have started. And I will, because it deserves to be played and demands to be conquered.

Rovio excitedly details the Angry Birds movie Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:30 AM PDT Speaking with IGN, Rovio's David Maisel (previously of Marvel Studios) has given an update on where the Angry Birds film is at, and what to expect from it. Yeah, I know you all are dying to hear more about the movie. Patience, people! "It's got to be everything that you'd expect from an Angry Birds movie as a fan of the game, plus so much more with surprises, innovative things, and twists," he explains. "It's something that we've worked already a lot on and we will over the next few years, but we're going to try to keep it as tight as possible so that when you go into that theater, it's an experience that you say, 'Wow, I didn't expect that.'" I can already see the in-theater trailer now, and hear the kid sitting behind me making that noise children make when they fondly recognize something out in public. Rovio Discusses Potential Angry Birds Movie [IGN via Flixist]

Honor 15 years of Tomb Raider with an updating gallery Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:15 AM PDT Hey, did you know that this October (that's right now!) marks the 15th anniversary of the Tomb Raider franchise? Well to celebrate this amazing feat, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix are going to throw all you Lara Craft fans a treat in the form of a digital art exhibit. This special page will update every Monday and Friday, starting today, with a new gallery on each of those days until the end of October. Being that it's a Monday, things have kicked off with a selection of art from Andy Park. Again, be sure to check out the site throughout this entire month. Wallpapers!

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier deploying in March 2012 Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:00 AM PDT After months of uncertainty, poorly timed beta invites, and well done cinematic trailers, a release date has finally been confirmed for the next entry in the Tom Clancy series. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will be hitting stores for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on March 6, 2012. Not much else is known about this new installment other then what has been extrapolated from the trailer. Players will have a new, dare I say more "futuristic" set of gadgets at their disposal. The Xbox 360 version is also boasting Kinect support, which is a first for series, as well as for realistic first-person shooters. Will this new game help to grow the fan base or will it ultimately be better off listed as M.I.A.? We'll have to see in March. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier marches to retail on March 6, 2012 [Joystiq -- Thanks, degravity]

Buy & Sell games at Destructoid, win a 3DS (who won?) Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:45 AM PDT [Update: Congratulations CH Josh of Audobon, NJ, you're the guy!  We'll start another contest soon.  What prize would you like to see next?  PS Vita?  Kindle Fire?  New tube socks? Sound off in the comments!] Destructoid is proud to bring you the laziest way possible to buy and sell games. We've partnered with Glyde and created The Destructoid BUY AND SELL GAMES THING.   Why you should try it: you'll get way more money selling with us than trading in your games at retail stores. We're so confident you'll like our shop that we're giving away a virtual raffle ticket each time you list and sell a game (or) purchase a new or used game between now and September 30th.  Destructoid earns a commission for each transaction, which means we'll be buying our readers something amazing every month.  If you don't win this one a new contest will be starting up immediately after.  Good luck! (Note: Dear Friends overseas: Our system only distributes NTSC games within the US right now. We're working on it!) Selling is easy Unlike eBay, selling doesn't take 30 steps and photography.  It works kind of like Netflix:  Buy or sell something and the pre-paid mailers (pictured above) do all the work.  Its almost too easy.  Try it!    Our prices may surprise you Dare to compare!  We're usually cheaper or the same price as the big guys.  Plus, when you buy a game on Dtoid you might be helping another community member buy their next game.  Try listing a game and see.   Nintendo 3DS Contest rules: 1)  You must either complete a purchase (buy something!) or list and complete a sale (sell something!) 2)  You must be in the United States (sorry, we're working on this. Caramba.) 3)  Winners will be selected by our partner at random and announced on our contest page and contacted over email with the address you have on file.  If you do not respond within 10 days the contest resets and you forfeit your prize.  You'd be surprised how often this happens.  Its amazing. Good luck!   Want our game deals in the mail?   Ok, we'll write some.  We promise to not bother you unless we have something dirt cheap going on, and we'll never share your contact information anyone.  In fact, we use a third-party service to manage and keep your email safe. sign up for our discount games newsletter * indicates required Email Address * Close   Let us know what you think in the comments below!   We'd love to know what you think of our shop.  Please send us your feedback, wishlist, and suggestions.

Live show: Calmly playing Rage on Mash Tactics Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:30 AM PDT [Not sure what Mash Tactics is? I've included a clip from a recent episode to show you just a glimpse of what you've been missing, you daft fool! You can see all of Destructoid's previously aired live shows in our archives.] Today, Mash Tactics will be jumping into id Software's new post-apocalyptic shooter Rage. The excitement over Rage seems to be matched only by its data size. Here's your chance to get an in-depth look at the game, and see if it's the ride through the wastes for you. Mash Tactics airs Monday through Friday at 4pm Pacific. Watch Jon Carnage let loose with off-the-wall humor and discuss the issues of the day in the live chat on Destructoid's Twitch.tv channel. Also, there are videogames being played. Join us for your chance to win prizes, talk to industry guests, and witness all of the glorious antics.

Trion Worlds to speak at NYCC about future of Rift, more Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:30 AM PDT It seems as though Trion Worlds will be pulling back the game development curtain a bit to shine light on the future of its games. On October 14, in Room 1A24 at New York Comic Con, various Trion Worlds team members will be discussing what the studio will be bringing to its virtual worlds in the coming months. Discussing the success of Rift, and what lies in its future will be design producer Hall Hanlin and lore lead Morgan Lockhart. Senior producer Chris Lena will give attendees a demonstration of End of Nations, a free-to-play, large-scale RTS that will include both cooperative and PvP gameplay modes. Finally, senior producer Rob Hill will talk about Defiance, an MMO third-person shooter for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that is being developed alongside the Syfy channel series. The game will place players on a world that has been desecrated by years of war, and where both humans and aliens struggle to survive. If you will be attending NYCC this year and have an affinity towards MMOs, RTSs or technomagical cosplayers in general, this would be a good way to kick off the weekend.

The new Portal 2 add-on is ready for your Peer Review Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:45 AM PDT Probably should have reinstalled Portal 2 last night. Whoops. The new, totally free "Peer Review" downloadable content is now available for PlayStation 3, PC, Mac, and Xbox 360 players. This add-on expands the P-Body and Atlas adventure with another test track to get stuck in, plus a single-player and cooperative Challenge Mode. To coincide with this launch, Valve has predictably dropped prices on the series. Portal 2 for $14.99 on Steam until October 6? I like your style, guys.

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