Dice is releasing a patch alongside armored kill update tomorrow. The patch will fix balancing issues and a few tweaks here and there.

Read below for more details

From: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/homepage.php?

By: Tom Ivan

DICE will launch a new Battlefield 3 patch tomorrow.

Featuring "a lot" of balancing tweaks and fixes - read the whole lot here - its release is timed to coincide with the launch of the game's Armored Kill DLC.

While the patch will be released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC tomorrow, Armored Kill will receive a staggered rollout, with Battlefield Premium members on PS3 getting first access on September 4.

Last month EA confirmed a Battlefield 3 Premium Edition release date of September 11 in the US and September 13 in Europe. It'll include the game, all Battlefield Premium content (including five themed DLC packs), and a 'Multiplayer

Head-Start Kit' which automatically unlocks 15 different weapons, gadgets and vehicle upgrades.

Kratos' big screen debut is being written by the minds behind the latest Saw movies.

Charles Roven and Alex Garnter, producers of the forthcoming film based on Naughty Dog's Uncharted action franchise, are producing the God of War movie via Atlas Entertainment.

No mention was made of a director or actors for the God of War film, and a release date has not been nailed down. In 2008, Rush Hour director Brett Ratner was attached to helm the project, but it is unclear if he is still involved.

News regarding game-to-movie adaptations has been buzzing of late. Just this week, Ubisoft announced that X-Men: First Class and Inglourious Basterds star Michael Fassbender will play the lead role in the upcoming Assassin's Creed film. Additionally, yesterday, CBS Films picked up the rights to make a movie based on Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

God of War: Ascension is due out in March 2013. It is a prequel to the original trilogy, and the first entry in the series to sport a multiplayer component.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5mLAiijgaHE

Article @ Gamespot.com

http://www.gamespot....writers-6386418

Call of Chief: Master Warfare?

"It's nothing official yet, but they've asked a bank to go and talk to possible buyers for Activision," a source close to Vivendi's board told the news agency.

Vivendi presently owns a 60 percent stake in Activision Blizzard, and stands to raise close to $10 billion by offloading the company, the sources said.

While Microsoft has the capital to purchase Activision Blizzard, the source told Reuters the Seattle technology giant is currently focused on building its next-generation Xbox.

"They probably don't want to distract themselves too much, but they are the ones who, if they want to stay in games, would think about owning some of these big franchises, not just providing the consoles," the source said.

As for Tencent, earlier this month, Activision Blizzard announced a deal with the Chinese company to bring Call of Duty: Online to China as a free-to-play game. However, a banker speaking to Reuters believes Tencent taking full ownership of Activision Blizzard would be a "big step" because of the companies' varying business models.

"[Activision Blizzard] have two big franchises, Call of Duty on the console side and World of WarCraft on the MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) side. And China is not a big market for console businesses; online games are much bigger for various reasons," said the unnamed banker.

A Microsoft representative told GameSpot, “Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation.”

Despite Activision Blizzard's success with the Call of Duty series and World of Warcraft, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter suggested in June that Vivendi might not have many suitors for the game maker.

"The problem is there are no readily apparent buyers for Activision," Pachter said at the time. "The only option left to Vivendi is to lever up Activision's balance sheet and pay out all of its cash as a dividend, then spin the company off."

[uPDATE] Pachter continues to hold this belief, telling GameSpot this morning that none of the above-mentioned companies are in a position to acquire Activision Blizzard.

"None of those make sense," he said. "TenCent is the only one actively acquiring, and they make much smaller acquisitions. Time Warner has never spent more than $150 million on game investments. Microsoft would lose a lot of value if Call of Duty was Xbox only. None of these are buyers."

It first came out that Vivendi was looking to offload Activision Blizzard in June, when a Bloomberg report stated Vivendi's board was planning to meet to discuss selling its majority stake in the game maker. Later that month, Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy was ousted for butting heads with the board regarding the firm's restructuring plans. And a new report suggested if a single buyer could not be found, the company would look to unload its shares on the open market.

Article @ Gamespot.com

http://www.gamespot....-report-6386412

Rocksteady is looking back for the next Batman game, it appears.

Gamers may want to temper their excitement for the project, as the site reports the new Batman game is not likely to arrive until 2014 at the earliest. Additionally, Mark Hamill said last October that he will not reprise his role as the Joker in the next game.

As of press time, neither Warner Bros. nor Rocksteady Studios had responded to GameSpot's request for comment.

Rocksteady Studios' first Batman game Arkham Asylum launched in 2009 to a strong critical reception. A sequel--Arkham City--debuted last October and shipped 6 million copies as of February.

Article @ Gamespot.com

http://www.gamespot....-report-6386420

The patch adds all kinds of new features, and fixes a number of problems. To download it, just boot up your game and the patch will download automatically. Here's the full list of fixes and additions:

Features

Added Pistons & Sticky Pistons.

Added Stackable fences.

Added Shears – required to get wool from sheep, and to collect leaf blocks.

TNT needs Flint and Steel or Redstone to detonate.

Redstone wire will now connect to a repeater.

New textures for Cobblestone and Brick.

Added Character Skin Selector to allow players to choose their skin from the default skins, or from Downloadable Content skin packs.

Added lighting improvements (brought forward from 1.8.2 update) and snow & rain improvements.

Added a save file cache to improve the speed of displaying the saves list.

Added ban list functionality to allow players to self-ban from levels they feel contain offensive content.

Added a ban list section to the How To Play menus.

Added an option for the host to limit online games to only players in their friends list (no friends of friends).

Added a seed display to the level load screen (requires existing levels to be saved out again to add the display).

Changed the tooltip display setting to in-game tooltip display, so that tooltips always display in menus.

Added the crosshair to the list of things affected by the opacity slider.

On using the quickselect bar, the opacity of the quickselect, tooltips, splitscreen gamertag display, and crosshair will be set to 80, and will fade back down to the user opacity setting after 6 seconds of no quickselect bar use.

Added some more Tips & Trivia to the loading/saving screen display.

Tutorial World changes & additions

Added optional tutorial for Pistons and Redstone.

Added a self-building bridge to the castle using Pistons.

Added some sugar cane, cactii and clay to the world.

Added a few other things for players to discover.

Fixes

Fix for only the host being shown the pop-up when any player attempts to place lava near the spawn point.

Fixed tooltip for Flint and Steel.

Fix for Note blocks not showing notes.

Fix for Leaderboard reads taking too long.

Fix to block players re-entering a level they have been kicked from, until the level is restarted.

Fix to stop players being able to join a game when they are not a friend of any player in the game.

Fix for Netherracks re-appearing after being mined.

Fix for a rare crash on entering the Nether.

Fix for attacking enemies at a different level not damaging them.

Fixed a problem causing some save games not to load.

Removed Herobrine.

Posted @ GAMEINFORMER

Check them out below.

Check out Smokin Shadowz thread here. http://www.343indust...es/#entry123803

http://www.computera...shots-released/

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In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...

Take-Two has sent over another awesome-looking Borderlands 2 trailer.

The new movie's set to the musical backdrop of Wimoweh, aka The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and largerly focuses on a dense jungle environment.

Borderlands 2 will hit Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in the US on September 18, and internationally on September 21

According to a promotional poster released last week, save files from the original Borderlands will unlock exclusive content in the upcoming sequel, granting veterans access to character heads and skins, which you can see here.

Click here for Source and Video. http://www.computera...le-environment/

Gears of War: Judgment will be a prequel to the established Gears series and even though the game is still a ways from release, (March 19, 2013), we want to know what sets this game apart from the previous Gears games. That question was answered at the Gears of War: Judgment panel at Comic-Con 2012. Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Fergusson had several new videos and announcements to give gamers exactly the Gears info they wanted.

Speaking of which, here are five ways Gears of War: Judgment will be different from Gears of War 1, 2 and 3.

1. Tone

Judgment's new tone is credited to its new writers, Rob Alten and Todd Bissel, both established writers in Hollywood and in gaming. Their writing style and mature sensibility will add another layer to the game. Brutality and the melancholy are both core themes of the series, and these themes will shape Judgment as well.

2. Classes

We already know OverRun will be class-based, but now we're learning more about each of the classes' roles. Each of the COG Defender classes will have specific and unique skills and loadouts. The Engineer will be able to build temporary sentries and repair vehicles. The soldier class can toss ammo crates, which will be vital for the rest of the team. The medic, who is female, can heal, and the Scout can access special sniping locations and add a tagging beacon.

PREVIEW: Gears of War: Judgment Hands-on Impressions -- The Ups and Downs of Overrun Mode

The Locust have their own classes too. When you play as the Locust, you'll start as a Ticker and work your way up to new Locust by earning points. Tickers will be able to chomp, dash, and self destruct. The Wretch can stun the COG with its scream. The Grenadier throws frag grenades. The Kantus is the Locust healer and can heal everyone in his immediate vicinity. The Blood Mount can carry any Grenadier and now Kantuses too. Corpsers are armored and can burrow. Ceripeed attacks and spits poison, and of course the Mauler who has a shield and a giant knife. This time, the shield spins.

3, Fun Beats Cannon

Chainsaw lancers had not been invented during the time of Judgment and neither was the hammerburst. Both weapons will make an appearance in the game though. "Oh no! How could Epic make such a mistake?" It's not a mistake. Epic knows and appreciates the story's cannon, but in the end they feel it's more important for fun to win, than cannon.

4. Game Plays Faster

The grenades are now on the left bumper, which might cause many gamers to freak out. Epic felt that pressing the d-pad, choosing the grenade, winding it up, and then launching it took too much time. (Epic took their sweet time to come to that realization.) A valid concern will be how to plant a grenade with this new format.

VIDEO: Gears of War: Judgment "OverRun Mode Tutorial" Comic-Con 2012 Trailer

5. Dedicated Servers

Epic learned a lot from the dedicated servers in Gears of War 3. So when it came to Gears of War: Judgment, Epic knew they had to repeat the success. So yes, Judgment will have them.

Now that you know how Gears of War: Judgment will differ from Gears of War 3, are you sold?

[uPDATE] EA confirms next entry in shooter series, promises access to beta next year for those who preorder October's Medal of Honor Warfighter; "The Battlefield 3 story is still just the beginning," company says.

This morning, Electronic Arts confirmed Battlefield 4, and said a beta for the new shooter will commence during fall 2013 for unspecified platforms. Gamers can get access to the trial period by preordering this October's Medal of Honor Warfighter. EA said more details regarding Battlefield 4 and its beta will be announced at a later date.

Battlefield 4's beta will deploy next fall.

Speculation concerning Battlefield 4 was sparked over the weekend, when EA's Origin webstore posted, and subsequently removed, promotional material for the game.

[uPDATE] The official Battlefield website has been updated with a message from EA on Battlefield 4. The statement says the company has nothing further to share on Battlefield 4 at present, and talked up Battlefield 3 as a game still in its early stages.

"Even with billions of bullets fired and millions of games played, we know the Battlefield 3 story is still just the beginning," reads a line from the statement.

The existence of Battlefield 4 comes as little surprise. Battlefield 3 arrived in October 2011 to a warm critical reception and shipments of 15 million units. Additionally, EA Labels president Frank Gibeau said in November "there is going to be a Battlefield 4."

Battlefield 4 may not be the only new franchise entry in the works. A report from May suggested series developer DICE was at work on a new entry in the spinoff series, Battlefield: Bad Company 3.

Battlefield 4's beta will deploy next fall.

DICE has revealed a selection of "key features" for Battlefield 3's upcoming Armored Kill DLC.

Set for release in September, the DLC promises to "up the ante for vehicular mayhem".

It will feature new drivable tanks, ATVs and mobile artillery, plus "huge battlefields", including the biggest map in Battlefield history.

The game's recently updated websitedescribes the following as key features:

• All-out vehicle warfare on four new maps
  
• Includes the biggest map in Battlefield history
  
• New vehicles, including tanks, ATV's, and mobile artillery
  
• Bring back five new vehicle unlocks to the base game
  
• Earn 20+ unlocks for the new vechicles in Armored Kill
  
• New Tank Superiority game mode
  
• All maps playable with all six game modes
  

PS3 Battlefield 3 Premium members will get access to the content first, followed by Xbox 360 and PC Premium members, followed by regular PS3 players, and then the rest. Launched last month, Battlefield 3 Premium picked up 800,000 paid users in its first two weeks of availability.

Armored Kill is the third of five planned Battlefield 3 expansions. It follows Back to Karkand and Close Quarters, and precedes Aftermath (December 2012) and End Game (March 2013).

Click here for Source and Video. http://www.computera...tures-detailed/

A new look inside the world of Grand Theft Auto V.

"We are sorry that it sometimes seems to take a long time, but the massive amount of work it takes to imagine, design, build, and populate a digital world is simply staggering, and we are constantly striving to make sure each game surpasses the last one," reads a line from the statement. "We try to work as fast as possible, but given the combinations of cutting edge technology, high resolution graphics and animation, and hundreds of thousands of sound files, all of which have to work perfectly, and be fun and enjoyable to play, it is not surprising the games take a while to make."

"Even with sequels to existing games, it is important to us that they have a lot of new elements and feel fresh and exciting," the message continues. "We feel it is our duty to make sure the games are as good as we can make them and as innovative as we can make them."

Elsewhere in the update, Rockstar spoke about Grand Theft Auto V. The company confirmed the upcoming open-world action game will not have any kind of beta, and warned users that any solicitation purportedly offering access to a GTAV beta could be a "dodgy online phishing scam."

A sunny day in Los Santos.

While Rockstar did not offer any new information regarding GTAV, the company said gamers can expect new information and assets from the game "soon." Additionally, the firm released two new images from the game, the first of which (embedded above) shows off a police helicopter high above the Los Santos setting. The second image (at right) depicts two individuals sitting on a waterside dock, draping their feet in the water.

As for why Rockstar has remained largely silent on GTAV since announcing the project in October, the firm said it doesn't want to spoil the game pre-release, and it is simply not ready to show more.

"We want to keep plenty back for the actual game release so there are still lots of surprises when you play it," the statement reads. "The only things we care about are that you enjoy the experience of actually playing the game and that we release accurate information. We just have not been in a position to show more of the game than the trailer and will not be for a while yet."

Lastly, Rockstar addressed the future of the Red Dead Redemption franchise, saying news about a sequel to 2010's much-praised open-world Western is forthcoming.

"We don’t always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean that we won’t get to them eventually," the statement reads. "Stay tuned for further announcements about the future of the Red Dead series."

http://www.gamespot....-cycles-6386611

G4's three days of coverage of Comic-Con 2012 starts tonight at 7/6c with a live hour of X-Playdirectly from the show floor! We'll have big exclusives of Halo 4, Gears of War Judgment, Assassin's Creed 3, Fortnite and DC fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us. Full show details below!

• Gears of War Judgment Exclusive
  Fan favorites Baird and Cole reveal another side of themselves in Gears of War Judgment and get a new multiplayer mode that combines Horde and Beast into one. Epic Games Director of Production Rod Fergusson stops by with an exclusive look.
  
• Borderlands 2 Trailer First Look
  Highly anticipated sequel Borderlands 2 is only a few months from release, and we'll take our first look at the latest trailer.
  
• Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Exclusive
  343 Industries' Frank O'Connor visits the stage with exclusive footage of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, the live-action web series that will carry us into the release of Halo 4.
  
• Assassin's Creed 3 Gameplay Exclusive
  Ubisoft is at Comic-Con showing off first Assassin's Creed 3 gameplay set in Revolution War-era Boston, and we have an exclusive look.
  
• Injustice: Gods Among Us Exclusive
  Fresh off last year's hit Mortal Kombat, NetherRealm Studios Creative Director Ed Boon brings us a look at exclusive Comic-Con footage of that studio's next project, a fighting game that takes on the DC Universe, Injustice: Gods Among Us.
  
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
  The whole reason the Transformers are on earth is in the upcoming game Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, and we hit the Comic-Con show floor for all the latest details.
  
• Tomb Raider's New Lara Croft: Camilla Luddington
  The upcoming Tomb Raider will show us a younger Lara Croft in the days before she'd completely hardened, and with it comes a brand new voice behind the character, actress Camilla Luddington. We find her on the Comic-Con 2012 floor for some face time.
  
• Fortnite Exclusive
  Epic Games leaves the Gears of War universe behind with new project Fortnite, a co-operative game that's all about scavenging and strategy. Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski and Tanya Jessen give us a first look at gameplay.
  
• Beyond: Two Souls' Ellen Page and David Cage
  Actress Ellen Page and Heavy Rain's David Cage stop by the Comic-Con 2012 stage to tell us all about their new game project, Beyond: Two Souls.
  
• Geoff Johns DC Comics Collectibles Giveaway
  DC Comics is at Comic-Con with a line of collectibles, and Geoff Johns stops by to show them off and give one away to a lucky fan.
  

Watch X-Play All Access: Comic-Con tonight at 7/6c!

http://www.g4tv.com/...tonight-at-76c/