UPDATE: The BBC has responded to its broadcast of a Halo logo during Thursday's News at One, admitting its mistake and apologising to viewers.

A BBC spokesperson told Eurogamer: "BBC News makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all images broadcast, however very occasionally mistakes do happen. Unfortunately an incorrect logo was used during a segment on last week's News at One bulletin and we apologise to viewers for the mistake.

"The image was not broadcast in our later bulletins."

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Remember the first half-hour of Darksiders? It largely involved hitting things. That's the kind of guy War was, after all: a hulking brute with massive hands and a gigantic sword. When the apocalypse was triggered a touch too early for his liking, he took to the streets - New York, I think - and started smacking around avenging angels, all of whom looked a bit like Transformers. He looked a bit like a Transformer too: squat, thick-limbed, and covered in complicated armour.

The first half hour of Darksiders 2 is a little different. It largely involves scampering over things, up things, around things and across things. Then hitting things. You're Death this time, right? Fellow horseman and friend/brother of War. When War takes the blame for the apocalypse being triggered a touch too early for his liking, you race off on your own journey to prove his innocence. A parallel timeline, but a slightly different adventure.

Death's a lot - well - thinner than War. He's ditched much of the horseman armour during the first few sequences of the game for starters, because Vigil's introducing a new loot system that sees you collecting boots, chest plates, gloves from the enemies you destroy. Kicking things off, then, he looks a bit like an extreme sports star, or Tarzan out of the Disney movie: lean and sinewy and quick.

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Posting the screenshots, Microsoft Studios' XBLA website PlayXBLA said the name of the game was a secret to be revealed during its press conference at E3 next week. But the name of the image files - AMX_Mystery_1 and AMX_Mystery_2 - give the game away somewhat.

Avatar Motocross Madness is an avatar-friendly Xbox 360 update of the original, published by Microsoft on PC back in 1998. It was followed by a sequel in 2000. The developer responsible, Rainbow Studios, was purchased by THQ in 2001 and went on to work on the MX vs ATV racing series before being closed down late last year.

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Revitalised retailer GAME has launched a new online price checker tool for you to total up your trade-in games.

The chain is also currently offering 25 per cent extra credit on trade-ins until the end of May.

GAME's price checker forces you to enter in the barcode of the product you want to trade in, then fill in a CAPTCHA form.

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UK engineers are preparing to dock two orbiting satellites using technology stripped from Microsoft's Kinect camera.

Space innovators at the Univeristy of Surrey and Surry Satellite Technology are developing STRaND, a twin-satellite mission to test the new docking technique.

Each STRaND satellite is constructed from low-cost parts found in consumer devices, with STRaND-1 using a Google Nexus phone as its onboard computer.

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According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the filing (via Trademarkia) for Remember Me was made on 22nd May 2012, and relates to computer game software.

A trademark for Remember Me was also filed in Europe, with OHIM, on 25th May.

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Just Cause developer Avalanche is working with Square Enix on an open world game, it's revealed.

Square Enix published the first two Just Cause games. Is this evidence that is will publish a third?

In an email sent to Eurogamer today to advertise a recruitment event at The Crowne Plaza Baltimore North Hotel on Wednesday 30th May, the Swedish developer said it was ramping up development on multiple current and next-gen console projects due out in 2013 and 2014.

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The actor who plays the IT Crowd's Douglas Reynholm is doing a voice for Worms Revolution, Team17 has announced.

Matt Berry played corporate boss Douglas Reynholmin in the IT Crowd and has also appeared in The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. In Worms Revolution he plays Don Keystone, a wildlife documentary maker and unseen narrator.

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Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be at Rezzed, Eurogamer's PC and Indie games show.

Gearbox FPS Borderlands 2 will be playable for the first time in the UK, while Firaxis strategy game XCOM will see a 15-minute demo narrated by one of the developers.

Rezzed takes place on Friday 6th July and Saturday 7th July at the Brighton Centre. Tickets are on sale now at www.rezzed.com, priced £12 for one day or £20 for both.

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As video game leaks go, it's one of the strangest we've ever seen.

The below video, posted to YouTube by one Skid Kid, shows plenty of Halo 4 multiplayer gameplay. The only problem is, Skid Kid filmed off of what looks like a 20-year-old standard definition telly, playing a VHS, in a barn. Really.

Also, the music isn't safe for work, or your ears. We advise you turn your speakers down, or, preferably, off.

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The Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter is funded.

Stainless' $400,000 goal was met yesterday with 10 days to go. At the time of writing, $421,532 had been raised off the back of 10,833 backers.

"We MADE IT!" read an update on the Carmageddon Kickstarter page. "Thanks to ALL OF YOU for the support and backing so far! As you'll see, I don't have the power of speech or typing completely down at the moment (some would say, most of the time...) as I'm STUNNED at the speed it's happened this weekend!

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Sci-fi shooter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has shot to the top of the UK all-format charts, beating Max Payne 3, last week's number one.

In a busy week for new releases Capcom RPG behemoth Dragon's Dogma slotted in in third place, ahead of Codemasters' latest racer DiRT Showdown in fourth.

Mario Tennis Open on 3DS managed an 11th place entry, while Doctor Who tie-in The Eternity Clock materialised in 34th from retail sales alone (digital downloads are not counted).

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Zone of the Enders creator Hideo Kojima has revealed he will take a supporting role on the recently-teased ZOE sequel, code-named "Enders Project".

Kojima will serve as a producer on the project due to his ongoing work on the under-wraps "Project Ogre".

"Since I am currently in beta on Project Ogre, I became the producer for the Ender's Project," Kojima wrote on Twitter (via gematsu. "From the start of the plan, it was clear I was just support. In reality, the game design, script, production, level design, etc. were all supervised by other staff. Even when I tried to force myself into things, I didn't have any success."

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There won't - "barring some sort of miracle" - be any new patches released for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, developer Big Huge Games has announced.

Lead designer Ian S. Frazier said a PC patch was in development, and would have added new difficulty modes, camera features and fixed bugs.

"But before we finished," Frazier wrote on the Kingdoms of Amalur forum, "the company collapsed."

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There is yet another version of Guilty Gear, considered by many to be the greatest fighting game series ever.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R is set for a location test in Japanese arcades on 2nd June. A gameplay video, below, emerged on YouTube yesterday.

Guilty Gear XX is the third game in the Arc System Works (BlazBlue) series that first launched in Japan in 2002. It's been updated a number of times with new characters and refined gameplay.

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Battlefield Premium will cost £35/$60, according to a new report.

A Battlefield Premium listing on Coolshop.co.uk (spotted by MP1st) carries a 29th June release date and a £34.96 price.

Its description: "BF3 Premium Service is 1 code in a box to give the consumers early access to the BF3 DLC expansion packs - Back to Karkand (already released), Close Quarters (releasing June), Armoured Kill (releasing Sept) and End Game (releasing December)."

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Sonic Team has given barmy Sega 2D platformer Hell Yeah! its blessing - and a few words of advice for tiny French developer Arkedo Studios.

During development Sonic Team chief Takashi Iizuka gave feedback to Arkedo boss Camille Guermonprez and, crucially, the thumbs up.

"Sega said, would you like to have a meeting with the Sonic Team? Hell yeah! F**k, why not? Let's do that. We saw the two main guys of Sonic Team, they played the game and then we asked, what makes it a very bad Gaijin game? What sucks?

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Aveline. If there's something special that I took away Dragon Age 2, something I really want to share with others or hold up as an example of what made the game worthwhile, it's Aveline. The travelling companion turned colleague turned captain of the guard was one of the very best examples of a strong, decent, uncompromised and well-rounded female character in gaming in a long, long time. I'm glad I adventured alongside her, I cared very much about what she had to say and her support meant a lot to me. That's pretty impressive for a collection of polygons and voice samples.

She also reflected the game at its very best: its strongest writing, its finest characterisation, its most engaging stories. The problem I have now is that I want an Aveline in every RPG I play. I'm not going to get one. In this respect, I've been spoiled.

I'm also glad she stuck with me right to the end, because otherwise I might not have made it. She was by my side as we stepped into another identikit dungeon, as we once more entered the caves under Sundermount, even as our city burned about us a second time and in a fashion that was suspiciously similar to it's previous conflagration. She, along with many of my other companions, kept me going when I thought I might falter, and not only did they save my neck many times, they also saved Dragon Age 2.

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It's eight weeks since we last featured a boxed home console release as game of the week, and we've only had five of them so far this year. The thin ice that the traditional games business finds itself on has been a regular topic in this column for a while, but it's hard not to return to it in the week that Kingdoms of Amalur was judged a failure for "only" selling 1.2 million copies, and that the founder of a young UK studio told me that everyone thought he was "insanse" for wanting to set up a business making console games.

And frankly, as I glance through my schedule for E3 in a little over a week's time, I don't see anything that's going to turn things around (unless Sony or Microsoft has a genuine surprise planned). Nor do I see it in this week's new releases - even though most of them are worth a go.

It's such an unexciting selection that Tom and I debated awarding game of the week to the unputdownable (but rather old) New Star Soccer instead, on the technicality that it was patched with Turkish language support this week. The outright best game that any of us has played this week was probably the Arma 2 mod Day Z - but it's only in alpha and probably worth waiting out a while before diving in.

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Apologies in advance for this: as Saturday Soapboxes go, it's going to be chirpy and probably quite inane. That makes some kind of sense, at least. The conversation it was based on was chirpy and inane too. That's my bag, I guess.

A few days ago, a friend of mine challenged me to think of something genuinely positive about the current gaming scene. He'd been listing all of the woes for the last few minutes: studio closures, brain drains, cloning, delayed next-gen consoles, triple-B games vanishing, traditional handhelds in trouble...

I'm not going to pretend what I came up with can match any of that. Truth be told, there are hundreds of thousands of things I feel genuinely positive about, anyway. There's the theoretically easy route to market, the range of platforms for developers to aim for, the endless possibilities of cheap middleware and - oh yeah! - the sheer amount of good games that are coming out. Something else - something far more basic - popped into my head, though, and then it wouldn't go away. Over the last few years, games have rediscovered colour.

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Given the sorry state that relatively modest single-player offering Skyrim launched in last year, many gamers are justifiably concerned over what sort bugs might cripple Zenimax's considerably more ambitious Elder Scrolls MMO when it launches next year.

When asked by Edge how he intends to ensure the game is stable when it goes live, director Matt Firor admitted that there are all manner of hurdles to overcome above and beyond what Bethesda was faced with during Skyrim's creation, such as account creation, servers and latency issues.

"The critical difference with MMOGs, though, is that you have a long beta test where you build up to thousands and thousands of players, and you tackle those problems as you run into them there," he added.

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Planned Kingdoms of Amalur MMO Project Copernicus is - or was, should 38 Studios close for good - shaping up to be something truly special, according to the game's author R. A. Salvatore.

Speaking in response to a post on Daily Kos, the veteran fantasy writer revealed that the game was much nearer to completion than many have speculated and was shaping up beautifully.

"This game is much further along than is being reported - I wish I could show you some if it - and the environments, the animations and the game-play would blow you away," he explained.

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With every Harry Potter book turned into a movie turned into a video game, publisher Warner Bros. will next use Kinect for a new Harry Potter tie-in.

The imaginatively titled Harry Potter For Kinect is due on Xbox 360 this autumn, and is being developed by Goldeneye 007: Reloaded developer Eurocom.

The game's story spans the entire Harry Potter saga, with various moments recreated for you to wave your arms and legs at. Players will be able to buy a wand, try on the sorting hat and battle Lord Voldemort.

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It had been due out in Europe on 8th June and in the US on 5th June.

Publisher Namco Bandai is yet to comment on the delay. We've checked in.

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Zone of the Enders creator Hideo Kojima has revealed artwork from a proposed sequel to the action series.

Kojima teased the as-yet untitled Enders Project at a Japanese event for the series' upcoming Zone of the Enders HD Collection.

The new Enders Project is still in an "experimental" phase, 4Gamer reported, with Kojima looking into the feasibility of making the game using the developer's Fox engine.

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"XCOM is the game that teaches you the meaning of 'acceptable losses'," Firaxis' Peter Murray says to me. As he demos an early build of Enemy Unknown to journalists, and as we talk about the 18-year-old game that inspires this re-imagining, something becomes obvious: He wants me to experience failure. He wants us all to. That's a little worrying.

But for Murray, the possibility of loss is part of what defines the XCOM experience. This could be the loss of a mission, the loss of a valuable and experienced soldier, the loss of an expensive base or even the loss of the game. Success, when it comes, should be paid for in blood, measured in bodycounts. Murray looks on as the assembled journalists play through a scripted tutorial mission that kills three of their four soldiers. He then demos additional footage that features the original game's deadly Chrysalids tearing an unprepared and outmanoeuvred squad to pieces. XCOM, he tells us, will not be pulling its punches.

Much of this challenge will be presented by the game's new approach to small squad tactics. After what Murray describes as a "eureka moment", lead designer Jake Solomon introduced "a completely new approach to combat, based on a move/action paradigm". The currency of time units favoured by older XCOM games has been binned in favour of a more streamlined system that represents the simple and yet critical choices a soldier makes in the heat of battle: moving and firing; sprinting forward; hunkering down to provide covering fire; reloading; assisting a squad-mate.

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According to Sega, Anarchy Reigns will launch on 6th July in Europe and 3rd July in the US. But Japanese developer Platinum isn't so sure.

In a note on the Platinum website, the Bayonetta maker said Sega had changed Anarchy Reigns' release date to TBC - despite it being finished.

"We break the bad news about Anarchy Reigns US/EU release date - Sega has decided to change the date to TBC," reads the post.

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Fighting game Persona 4 Arena launches in Europe this year, Atlus has announced.

The spin-off of the Japanese role-playing game series hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on these shores courtesy of Zen Unites.

Persona 4 Arena is a collaboration between Atlus and BlazBlue developer Arc System Works, and features hand-drawn 2D artwork. Characters from Persona 3 and Persona 4 feature in a story set after Persona 4.

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Minecraft has now surpassed nine million sales across all versions of the game.

Minecraft's PC, Android, iOS and Xbox Live Arcade editions have collectively sold 9.2 million copies, Mojang's business developer Daniel Kaplan wrote on Twitter.

Sales of the creative cube-based sandbox today hit six million for the PC version alone, creator Markus "Notch" Persson revealed.

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Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning apparently needed to sell "in the 3 million range just to break even" - an astronomical ask of a new IP of its status.

The words came from Lincoln Chafee, governor of Rhode Island (the state that provided the loan 38 Studios was founded upon, and now can't pay back), during a press conference last night (reported by Kotaku). That's what "experts" had told Chafee.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning managed to sell 1.22 million copies in 90 days. 38 Studios boss Curt Schilling revealed the total on Twitter, adding that the game had "outperformed [publisher] EA's expectations".

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The full track listing for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD has been revealed, offering a mix of new and returning tunes.

Seven tracks return from the first two Tony Hawk games, whose levels are re-mixed in the upcoming PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 HD remake.

Joining those themes are seven fresh songs, all appropriate for listening to in cut-offs and Element t-shirts.

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Hot on the heels of Vigil revealing that the Wii U version of Darksiders 2 will look "at least as good as" the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, Gearbox Software has gone one step further, and insisted the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines will be the best-looking version.

Echoing Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford's comments made earlier this month, senior producer Brian Burleson described the Wii U is a "powerful, powerful machine".

Publishers and developers working with Wii U are under orders from Nintendo not to divulge information on the console, with technical specifications a closely guarded secret.

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Last month THQ delayed promising action game Darksiders 2 to August 2012 - a decision that disappointed some eager fans.

Developer Vigil insisted the extra time would make for a much better game. Now, it's explained how exactly.

"To be honest, it's a lot of things that aren't totally apparent," associate producer Jay Fitzloff told Eurogamer. "It's final detail."

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EA has strapped up its FIFA Euro 2012 DLC and sent it back onto the pitch following complaints of screen freezing.

As announced on the game's official forum earlier today, an update is now rolling out across all platforms.

Here's the full list of fixes:

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Mounted combat is the headline addition in Skyrim update 1.6, due out on PC and consoles soon.

As detailed on the Bethesda Blog, the patch will allow both ranged and melee combat on horseback.

Update 1.6 also brings with it a number of bug fixes and stability tweaks. PC users can try it out now in Steam beta, though a final release date has not yet been set.

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Embattled Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios is in its death throes, according to a Polygon report.

All of staff have apparently been laid off today, so say sources close to the Rhode Island-based outfit.

A separate Kotaku piece claims subsidiary Big Huge Games has also closed its doors. The Maryland studio, which co-developed EA-published RPG Amalur, was bought by former pro-baseballer Curt Schilling's 38 Studios outfit back in 2009.

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Minecraft has overtaken Call of Duty: Black Ops on the weekly Xbox Live activity chart.

It's currently the second most played game on the service, up from third last week, with only Modern Warfare 3 attracting more global unique users.

Mojang's world-building sensation is the first game to overtake Black Ops since it launched last November, aside from Modern Warfare 3.

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A new Mass Effect 3 DLC pack, titled Rebellion, is available to download free of charge next week, BioWare has announced.

The pack, which includes a batch of new multiplayer content, is available from 29th May on PC and Xbox 360, and 30th May on PlayStation 3.

First and foremost, there are two new maps. Firebase Jade overlooks a jungle reservoir surrounded by huge waterfalls, while Firebase Goddess is a circular stage set in the middle a Thessian metropolis.

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What appears to be the first piece of art from Konami's rumoured Castlevania: Lords of Shadow sequel has found its way onto the web.

The image, above, appeared on the publisher's Facebook page along with a link to a teaser site titled The Dragon Returns, promising a 31st May reveal.

A clever NeoGAF poster then spotted "CLOS Teaser Page" in the site's source code, adding further weight to speculation that a sequel to MercurySteam's 2010 adventure is indeed incoming.

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From Software's Kinect-exclusive tank combat title Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor gets an Xbox Live demo today, publisher Capcom has announced.

The taster lets you get the feel of a Vertical Tank across the game's first two levels.

The full game is then set to trundle into European stores on 22nd June.

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The studio responsible for porting Minecraft to Xbox Live Arcade has offered a little more detail on which features from the PC game are to be patched over.

Speaking in an interview with OXM, 4J Studio's Paddy Burns revealed that update 1.7.3 will be the next addition, bringing with it the piston feature that lets you heave rows of blocks around.

That's a relatively small patch compared to the game-changing 1.8.1 'adventure' update that is also in the works.

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Stainless Games' digital version of cult card game Magic the Gathering is one of the most popular titles on Xbox Live. This summer will see the developer pump out the series third incarnation, Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013.

It's the second title in just two years of what could now be an annual franchise. But it wasn't always supposed to be that way.

"What we wanted to do originally was, as we're living in the modern digital download era, make a game and just carry on releasing DLC for it, and go on forever," Ben Gunstone, the game's production director, told Eurogamer. "That proved in the real-world to be very difficult, within the constraints of Xbox, mainly."

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It seems that UK PM David Cameron has got himself hooked on ubiquitous touchscreen time-waster Fruit Ninja.

As reported by The Telegraph, a senior adviser has revealed that our benevolent leader pours "a crazy, scary amount of time" into the Halfbrick-developed title.

Cameron is apparently a big fan of his iPad and has recently commissioned a bespoke app "that will give him a management dashboard, with everything from dole figures to inflation".

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As bona fide stop-the-press moments go, the events of 1st March 2010 stack up impressively. With Modern Warfare 2 smashing sales records across the globe and cementing the Call of Duty brand's claim to 'biggest gaming franchise ever' status, Activision announced out of the blue that its creators, Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, had been relieved of their posts with immediate effect.

What on earth could have prompted the publisher to get rid of the two men responsible for its steamrolling multi-billion dollar FPS cash cow? Next Tuesday, after more than two years of legal pre-amble, the relevant parties will gather in a Los Angeles court room to establish exactly that, decide who did wrong by who, and at what cost.

With a billion dollars in damages potentially at stake, not to mention the reputations of some of the biggest players in the video game industry, it promises high drama, Machiavellian corporate intrigue and, surely, a whole lot of name-calling.

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Aliens: Colonial Marines is a "massive" project and hundreds are working on it, developer Gearbox has said.

The studio has at least three high-profile first-person shooters in development: Aliens, Borderlands 2 and Brothers in Arms: Furious 4, but senior producer Brian Burleson insisted Colonial Marines is getting the attention it deserves.

"It's been pretty massive," he said. "We have hundreds of people working on this game."

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"I think caves are just interesting," says Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert.

"They're kind of this source of beauty on one level and I think there's a prehistoric part of our brain that triggers them as a place of safety. They were our homes for hundreds and thousands of years. There's something intrinsic about a cave that I think everybody likes on some level."

"Do you like exploring caves in real life?" I ask.

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Brütal Legend and Costume Quest developer Double Fine has unveiled The Cave, a new adventure game from Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert.

Sega will publish the downloadable title on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in early 2013.

In Cave, you assemble a team of adventurers, explore a subterranean amusement park and encounter inter-continental ballistic missiles. "Rappelling", "spelunking" and dark rocky caverns also feature.

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Ubisoft will park a double-decker Rocksmith Tour bus at most of the world's major music festivals this summer.

In the United Kingdom, those festivals will be Isle of Wight (22nd to 24th June) Reading Festival (24th to 26th August) and Bestival (6th to 9th September).

The tour bus will also chug along to Gamescom on 17th to 19th August.

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"Is it a downloadable game?" If I had a pound for every time I'd been asked that while playing Dirt Showdown then I would have, well, £3. Still, that's three times that the first instinct of one of the people walking past our games room was to inquire about this new racing game's origins, which suggests not everyone has gotten their head around Codemasters' latest brand extension, or that it raises some doubt at first sight.

It's not a downloadable game though; it's a boxed release that happens to draw its name and some of its inspiration from Codies' increasingly gnarly rally game series, itself an offshoot of the superb Colin McRae games. It's also, along with Ridge Racer Unbounded, proof that the arcade racing genre isn't just surviving following the closures of studios like Bizarre Creations and Black Rock, but delivering some of its best work.

But whereas Ridge Racer Unbounded was a subtle trick - a rollercoaster of destruction, balancing on the knife edge of a thrilling handling model that almost didn't work - Dirt Showdown's success is much more familiar: brilliant racing disciplines, accessible handling, gorgeous presentation and tremendous variety.

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Struggling Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios has been faced with further setbacks, including the departure of several execs.

Studio boss Jennifer MacLean publically revealed her departure via her LinkedIn profile. Her tenure ended back in March. Fellow exec John Blakely has also jumped ship; he quit the developer last month, Joystiq reported.

38 Studios has also failed to find much-needed new financial backing. Last week it was revealed that the company had been unable to pay staff wages. The company's health insurance has also now run out.

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Capcom is aiming to shorten development times for major titles from between three and four years to just two and a half years in an effort to stay competitive and maximise revenue from its key IPs, according to company CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto.

Speaking in a note to investors earlier this week, as reported by GameSpot, Tsujimoto explained that the strategy will likely raise costs but will lead to greater profits in the long run.

"Speeding up development will probably raise the cost. But creating quality content will be vital to Capcom's ability to survive by overcoming intense global competition," he said.

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Key members of the team behind Inside Xbox - the on-console video service recently scrapped by Microsoft - have set up their own production company.

As reported by MCV, co-host Dan Maher along with producers Gareth Wild and Ashley Denton are in the early stages of getting new outfit Explosive Alan Productions off the ground.

They haven't detailed exactly what their plan is but it definitely sounds video game-related - Maher Tweeted earlier today that they'll be filming at a Square Enix community event tomorrow.

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Something called My Little Sister Can't Possibly Be This Cute Portable Can't Possibly Continue is currently the best selling game in Japan.

It's a PSP title, it's published by Namco Bandai and it's the game that 53,175 Japanese people most wanted to play last week. We'd head to YouTube to find out more but we really don't want to wind up on a government watchlist.

In fairness, it was another slow sales week in Japan. The only other new entry worthy of note was a PSP remake of Persona 2, which debuted in third place.

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Capcom has just announced details of a lavish box set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its Street Fighter series.

Available for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 from 18th September, it includes the following swag:

All that lot will set you back $149.99. At present it's only confirmed for the US but we're chasing up news of a Euro launch.

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Will you help fund The Thief, a short film inspired by The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim?

British enthusiast Chris Woods needs $1100 to fund his project. So far, he's got $431. He's using the crowd-funding site indiegogo to raise the amount, and not Kickstarter.

The Thief spins a tale of a peace treaty gone "awry", and a plot to pinch the Draconian Madstone. This all revolves around the ever-entertaining Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood.

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The graphics of the Wii U version of Darksiders 2 are "at least as good" as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions', developer Vigil has said.

Game companies and developers are under strict orders not to discuss the Wii U in detail publicly, a directive that has led to speculation about the horsepower of Nintendo's Wi successor. Indeed one report from earlier this year claimed the Wii U was "not as capable" as the PS3 and Xbox 360.

But with final developer kits now with engineers, and Nintendo just two weeks away from unveiling the final version of the hardware at E3, Vigil has insisted Wii U owners will see visual parity when it comes to multiplatform games.

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Ever wondered what would happen if Capcom and Valve got together to do a fantasy Street Fighter x Portal crossover fighting game?

It probably wouldn't look anything like the video below, from talented mash up artist The Pixel Kingdom (as seen on the Capcom Europe blog).

Give Street Fighter characters a Portal gun for use in the Super Street Fighter 2 engine, though, and it probably would look like the video below. See Fei Long mess with Dhalsim's elongated arms, Guile get the better of the bonus stage car, and Chun Li bamboozle Ryu - with surprisingly gruesome results.

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A full-scale, "all bells and whistles", triple-A Carmageddon game is the "ultimate goal" of series creator Stainless Games.

Whether that ever gets made depends upon the Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter project. Should it reach its funding target of $400,000 - and it looks like it comfortably will - and should the game be successful, then yes, Carmageddon could return in a very big way.

"That is absolutely what our sort of ultimate goal is - that we will be in a position to be able to get under way a real 'all bells and whistles' job," Stainless Games co-founder Neil Barnden shared with Eurogamer.

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Ubisoft has revealed the Far Cry 3: Insane Edition with a new trailer.

It comes with all the digital content for the game, including Monkey Business (an exclusive one hour single-player mission) and extra single-player and multiplayer content (three packs: the Hunter Pack, Predator Pack and Warrior Pack, and the two bonus missions that come with the already announced Lost Expeditions single-player content).

On top of that you get an essential island survival guide, exclusive survival kit packaging and the insane Vaas Wahine bobblehead.

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A judge has recommended that the Xbox 360 be banned in the US.

Courthouse News reports that Judge David Shaw said the International Trade Commission should use a cease and desist order to ban imports of the Xbox 360 Slim 4GB and 250GB models into the US because, in his view, they infringe on four patents owned by Motorola.

He also wants Microsoft to post a bond equal to seven per cent of the value of unsold Xbox 360s in the US.

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This article contains plot spoilers and is best read once you've finished Max Payne 3.

It was a strange day when Rockstar's take on Max Payne emerged as a fat bald dude with a bad temper. I remember blowing air into my cheeks and making a worried parp noise. No one likes change.

I grew in faith, sure, but this remained a far cry from the slick hero who once jumped sideways through Brooklyn in a familiar leather jacket and bad tie combo. As it turned out, however, Fat Max™ managed to fill those initial doubts full of bullets the second he entered the room.

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It had been due for release in the current fiscal year. No reason was offered for the hold up. Traditional strategy effort XCOM: Enemy Unknown is still due for release in October.

The publisher's report also offered a few Max Payne 3 updates. The PC version of Rockstar's recent sequel is available from 1st June, with a beefy DLC schedule following after that:

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New Ubisoft god game Babel Rising launches on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on 13th June, the publisher has announced.

It then gets an iOS and Android release on 14th June, followed by PC on 27th June. A Windows Phone 7 version will follow some time thereafter. No price tag for any platform has been confirmed.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 releases are compatible with Move and Kinect as applicable.

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Too Human developer Silicon Knights will only be eligible for $1 in damages if it wins its ongoing court case with Unreal Engine creator Epic Games.

As reported by Polygon, a North Carolina judge made the last minute ruling shortly before the trial commenced earlier this month.

Should Silicon Knights win, it will be able to appeal how the damages sum was determined, or decide to seek another recourse.

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Like it or not, Modern Warfare exerts a powerful gravitational pull on the games within its orbit - and, while the titles under the Tom Clancy brand may have started out as tactical simulations, they're not immune to the inexorable tug of Activision's super-dense star.

A couple of handheld spin-offs aside, the last time Ghost Recon saw the light of day was in 2007's Advanced Warfighter 2, and much has changed since then. All three Modern Warfare games have raised the blockbuster stakes where military bombast is concerned, while two Gears of War sequels have solidified and defined the template for third-person cover-based shooters. The fact Future Soldier takes more than a few cues from these commercial juggernauts is as inevitable as it is disappointing.

This influence manifests across both gameplay and storyline, with the narrative now following the obligatory quartet of wise-cracking soldiers - including such genre staples as Gruff Black Captain and Sarcastic Redneck - as they criss-cross the globe on the trail of yet more stolen nukes. Even as the action hops restlessly from South America to Africa, from Pakistan to the Arctic Circle, it spins a predictable tale, familiar from too many other shooters, culminating in the pursuit of rogue Russian hardliners with their eye on worldwide chaos.

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The Dead Island Game of the Year Edition launches in Europe on 6th July 2012, and in the US and Canada on 26th June, Deep Silver has announced.

That's for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The Dead Island GOTY includes the Bloodbath Arena mode and Ryder White storyline DLC, as well as The Ripper weapon blueprint. The original game has sold "way over" three million copies worldwide, Deep Silver said.

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