Duke Nukem Forever Curse Lives On

Here we go again. The Duke Nukem Forever team has fallen victim to the curse of Duke Nukem Forever. Take-Two would like to let you know that Duke has been delayed until June 14th. While they do poke fun at the issue with this video, it still doesn't make any of us Duke fans any happier. We've seen this all before guys...



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Pre-orders are a go on Razer Onza 'professional' controllers

Razer has been showing off their Onza Xbox 360 controllers for a while now at various shows. But they've been hush on giving out release date or pricing information. Until now that is. They've now opened up pre-orders for the controller, and they've also unveiled that there will actually be two versions of the controller, the standard Onza, and an Onza Tournament Edition ($39.99 and $49.99 respectively). Both controllers offer an improved d-pad, two programmable shoulder buttons and "Hyperesponse" face buttons. White the T.E. adds adjustable resistance analog sticks, backlit buttons, a rubberized finish and a braided cable (both controllers are wired).

At E3 2010 the Techphules editors had the opportunity to play some rounds of Modern Warfare 2 on what is now being called the Onza Tournament Edition. We came away very impressed with the controller, and I have to say the adjustable resistance on the analog sticks had to be my favorite feature.

From the looks of the pre-order page it looks like estimated shipping dates are around the end of February for the Onza, but the T.E. is already sold out with no dates announced as of yet.

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New Mortal Kombat brings back the pain and gore

Everybody has heard of Mortal Kombat. Period. My girlfriend knows what Mortal Kombat is, my parents know what Mortal Kombat is, heck my grandma knows what Mortal Kombat is. Of course a lot of these "non-gamers" that know of the series only know about it because of the all the controversy it caused in the mid-90's when the games owned both the arcades and the home consoles. Did I buy (ok, I was 12 when it came out, I didn't really "buy" much, so it was bought for me) a Sega Genesis just so that I could play MK with blood and real fatalities (ABACABB FTW), even though I already owned the graphically superior SNES version? Of course I did. I tried my damnedest to get the sweat from the SNES version to just be colored red, in hopes that that would satisfy me. Hours and hours of Game Genie (oh how I loved thee) "hacking", and the closest I got was purple "blood". Not the goal I had, but to a 12 year old that was still pretty flippin' cool.

Anyways, as most original MK fans would agree, the series hasn't really been what it used to be. Ever since the series followed the trend of other fighting games and went 3D, it just hasn't been the same. Well, the upcoming MK iteration is looking to fix that. Just like the super popular Street Fighter 4, the next MK is using the 3D fighters on a 2D fighting plane design. And it looks fantastic!

The team at NetherRealm Studios are going back to the violent roots of the series and bringing back many of the elements that made it so popular in the first place. Having literally defined the mature game category, MK is coming back with the fastest and most brutal installment to date. The team has obviously put a lot of focus on the speed of the gameplay and combo system, in hopes of making the fighting a little deeper than previous MK games. They've also brought back some of the classic background that you'll remember fighting in, transformed with a fresh paint of 3D of course. But the most stunning new feature is in the character models. See each character is actually constructed with 2 models; the exterior model that you normally see, and an inner "skeletal" model. The inner-model gives every character their own visible bone structure and internal organs. This allows the game to be more brutal than ever imagined before. Instead of just being a bloody mess, Fatalities will show off broken bones and even show organ structures, that is when the Fatality doesn't have said organs leaving the body...

There is also new special X-Ray combos. These moves aren't done at the end of a round like Fatalities, they're done during a round. They will zoom into the action and show skulls cracking, bones breaking, etc. All of this is a little easier to be seen than to try and describe, so check out the trailer:



Product Features:

• Mature Presentation
  
  • Fatalities make a triumphant return to their original violent form as Mortal Kombat gives its fans what they've been demanding. Graphic details, never before possible are presented with the most sophisticated graphics engine in MK history.
• All New Game Play
  
  • By returning to its classic 2D fighting plane, mature presentation, and up to 4 player tag-team kombat; Mortal Kombat introduces an all new fighting mechanic that's both accessible and provides the depth that fighting game players look for.
• Deep Story Mode
  
  • Mortal Kombat offers the deepest story mode of any fighting game. Players are taken back to the original Mortal Kombat tournament where they try to alter the events of the past in an attempt to save the future.
• Graphics & Technology
  
  • Characters, enviroments and fatalities have never been presented with as much gory detail as in this next generation Mortal Kombat. From internal organs to the most "realistic" blood effects, MK has never looked this good.
• New Game Modes
  
  • In addition to an enhanced online feature set, Mortal Kombat introduces Co-op arcade mode and many additional modes to be announced in the upcoming months.

Mortal Kombat is set to be released for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 sometime in 2011.
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution trailer amazes

Eidos paired up with the CGI wizards at Square-Enix to do the CGI work for their upcoming entry in the Deus Ex series. They've finally released their first trailer for the game, and proven that they are worth every penny.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is coming to the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2011.
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Medal of Honor "Leave a Message" trailer

EA looks to be bringing back the Medal of Honor series in a big way. And with all the recent drama with the Modern Warfare series it looks like a great time to re-introduce a solid war-series. Instead of most FPS war game trailers, this one chooses to focus more on the human side of war instead of throwing as many explosions and fast-cuts as possible at your. Consider us impressed EA, keep it up.

Medal of Honor will ship October 12, 2010.
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Call of Duty : Black Ops Premier Trailer

So the drama at Infinity Ward may still be in high gear, but that will only have an effect on the next, next, Call of Duty. This years installment is Treyarch's turn, and now we've finally got the debut trailer for their upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops. From the looks of it, we're still in modern times, and Black Ops is a cool name that would work for future installments similar to how Modern Warfare worked for the series too. At least a name is one less thing Treyarch would have to worry about in 2012, CoD: BO2 writes itself.

From the trailer it looks like the release date is set for either September 11th or November 9th, 2010.
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Left 4 Dead 2 : The Passing released

As previously posted, the first content update for Left 4 Dead 2 is now available for both the PC and Xbox 360.

Here's a little teaser video from Valve starring Francis and Rochelle:



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Left 4 Dead 2 DLC "The Passing" dated

The first add-on to Left 4 Dead 2 is finally coming this Thursday, April 22nd. Entitled "The Passing", the new DLC brings a nice chunk of content to Left 4 Dead 2, including; a new campaign (with single player, multiplayer & co-op gameplay), a new co-op game mode, support for infected bot play in Versus, the new "Fallen Survivor" uncommon common zombie, golf club melee weapon, M60 firearm and heck, even the crew from the original Left 4 Dead down south to slaughter some infected with you.

There will also be a series of week-long events called "Mutations". Game modes such as "Realism Versus" and "Chainsaw Massacre" are just a couple of the 20+ modes planned. "The Passing" will be 560 Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360, and free of course for the PC players.

Valve will even be celebrating the launch of the DLC this Thursday with all the fans. They will be playing from 11am-5pm PST on the PC, and from 7pm-11pm PST on the 360. Can you say best job ever? Hit up the source link for a list of all the account names for each platform that you'll need to add to your friends list to participate.

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Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds announced!

After a decade of whining from fans, Capcom finally announced Marvel vs Capcom 3 at their Captivate 2010 event. As you can see in the trailer below, the series has gone 3D. It should be more of a 2.5D fighter, similar to Street Fighter 4, with the 3D fighters taking battle on a 2D plane.

Unlike Marvel vs Capcom 2, the game will be released as a retail disc. The full cast for the game has yet to be announced, but from the trailer you can see that Wolverine, Ryu, Morrigan, Hulk, Iron Man and...Resident Evil's Chris Redfield.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 is set to be released Spring 2011 for both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.






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Finally more options to buy Microsoft Points

Since the introduction of the point system that Microsoft uses for Xbox Live transactions there have been users complaining of the unfair bundles of points that were offered to purchase. Previously points were sold in increments of 500, but many games / items were sold in 400 point increments, which seemed to always leave users with left over points. Of course this setup the feeling that you were wasting points if you did not buy more to get the balance to end up at zero.

Finally Microsoft is selling points in increments of 400 on Xbox Live (at least in North America). It's nice to see that Microsoft is possibly finally listening to a major gripe users have had with the service. But I can't help but think that because of the smaller amount of leftover points people will now have sitting in their accounts, the sales of themes and avatar clothing is going to drop significantly. But the crazy kids on Xbox Live have surprised me many times before, so I could be wrong.





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Super Street Fighter 4 devs talk character rebalancing

The Street Fighter series has been regarded by many as the most balanced strategic fighters available. Street Fighter 4 is about to be replaced with it's "Super" variant as the current fighter of choice for many. Super Street Fighter 4 promises to bring with it new characters and content, but it's also bringing adjustments to the current SF4 roster as well.

An entry on the Capcom Street Fighter blog goes into serious details on the changes being made to some of the SF4 cast. Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega & M. Bison balancing details are all covered in the post.

It's been noted by the devs already that they have reduced the damage output in general for all characters (with the exception of Dhalsim, as his damage was low to begin with). The main reason they've done this is to "increase the number of turns in a fight". Terms like this show how much of a chess game a round of Street Fighter is to the devs and tournament players. They go on to say "if you read your opponent twice, you would probably win" (referring to vanilla Street Fighter 4), they are lower damage output to increase the "turns" in a game of Super Street Fighter 4.

Other character changes include making Guile more "Guile-like" by adjusting the charge times on his special moves, and upgrading his offensive priorities. Dhalsim, who again is the only character to not receive damage output reductions, is getting some special move buffs to help out all the creative players that choose him. Balrog, Vega & M. Bison are all getting higher priorities added to their special moves. Then comes Sagat. Sagat is pretty widely considered the strongest character in SF4. The players know this, and the devs know this. Instead of simply taking away Sagat's abilities, which could seriously affect play styles of current Sagat players, the devs have mostly just lowered his damage output to make other characters more competitive with him. They've also added some "openings" to his offense, or it could be said they've taken away some of his cheapness that many players used to control fights and not feel as "invincible" while doing so.

There's much more detailed information on all the changes at the SF blog, hit them up to satisfy all you're super geek needs and start making changes to your strategies. Aside from all these specific character tweaks, all characters are also getting new special moves and ultras. The SF blog also notes that they will be detailing more characters soon to pretense the Super Street Fighter 4 launch date of April 27th.

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Crysis 2 Reveal

The first Crysis game is still able to cause havoc on even the latest PC hardware, over 2 years after it's release. Crysis 2 was built from the ground up with console support in mind, so it's finally going to give PS3 / Xbox 360 gamers a taste of what all the hype was about. Crytek says the new engine will keep the game running at a constant 30fps on the consoles, but capable PC's will still be able to turn the sliders all the way up and punish their PC's if they desire.

Either way the new trailer for the game is outstanding. Just like the old "Mad World" Gears of War trailer, the mixture of carnage with soft tempo music is a great combination.

Crysis 2 is set to release holiday 2010.





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Netflix looking to add 5.1 audio to Watch Instantly this year

CNET is reporting that in Netflix's 2010 development road map they are looking to add both 5.1 audio streams and closed captioning to it's streaming HD videos later this year. Earlier in the day claims of also adding 1080p were reported, but Netflix has since reclaimed that statement, simply saying that 1080p is not in the books for this year.

Adding 5.1 to Watch Instantly is definitely enough to get this blogger to start using the service again, the next problem is content. Currently only about 6% of the current offerings stream in HD, will 5.1 audio take just as long to trickle down to the flicks you want to see?

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Lesnar gets UFC Undisputed 2010 Cover

Like him or not, Brock Lesnar has made a big impact in the world of UFC in a pretty short amount of time. Lesnar, who has been sidelined for months due to pretty severe illness, still had the star power to snag the cover shot of the franchises newest game. Now that he's due to come back and defend his title later this summer it makes the deal even better for THQ.

UFC Undisputed 2010 is due for release on May 25th.

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New Battlefield: Bad Company 2 trailer

So Modern Warfare 2 isn't your thing? No problems, you're probably more of a Battlefield person. Unfortunately the next true sequel in the form of Battlefield 3 isn't coming anytime soon, but lucky for you it looks like Bad Company 2 is coming along quite nicely. Can't wait for the PC beta.




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Modern Warfare 2 kills sales record

So it seems all the negative press and boycotts that Infinity Ward got in the weeks leading to the release of Modern Warfare 2 didn't really matter. They still sold a bajillion copies. Well ok, it was only 4.7 million copies...in one day...which far exceeds the previous record of 3.6 million, held by Grand Theft Auto 4.

Speaking of boycotts, check out this screenshot of the Steam PC Modern Warfare 2 boycott group. Way to go guys...

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Various pieces of Left 4 Dead 2 love

The launch of Left 4 Dead 2 is right around the corner. To add a little bit to the hype, the official Left 4 Dead blog has been updated. The update brings some sweet concept art wallpapers (all in glorious 1920x1200), and a contest.

Gamestop is also getting in on the L4D2 action, with their "Leave Yourself 4 Dead" activity on their pre-order site. It allows you to upload a picture of your face, zombifies you up, and then puts you in a video along with Nick from L4D2.

Last but not least, if you're looking for just the right thing to wear next week for the release of Left 4 Dead 2, then glitchgear.com has just the thing for you:






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Valve: Oh right, the Left 4 Dead 2 demo was supposed to be done today...

So anybody waiting to play the Left 4 Dead 2 Demo through Steam probably already knows that there was a bit of miscommunication that happened somewhere down the line. You see, the official Steam L4D2 Demo event earlier today said the game would be released at 3pm CST on October 27th. That time came and went, then about 30 min after that (and hundreds of posts/threads on the official forum later), that page updated to say 1am CST on October 28th. Valve has yet to comment on the event, and at this point I doubt they will. But if you spent anytime in the official forum today/tonight then you'd see a huge opportunity for Valve to save some face and communicate what the problem was, and why it happened. Because now the Oct 27th demo date that the pre-orders were given as incentive isn't going to happen save for a few timezones.

To rub it in even more, Xbox 360 pre-order customers were able to download their demo early this morning. So the system that, in the past Valve has criticized because of it's closed nature, and the content delaying approval process that Microsoft enforces, now got the demo first. Almost an entire day earlier to be precise. Not cool Valve...not cool.

On a related note, here's the first Gamestop-sponsored TV spot for L4D2:


Update: The time has now changed AGAIN to 3:00pm CST on October 28th.



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"All's Fair in Love and War" Assassins Creed 2 Video

Here's the latest developer diary entry for Assassins Creed 2, entitled "All's Fair in Love and War". It focuses on the combat in the game, and man have they stepped up the brutality from the first game.

Assassins Creed 2 launches on November 17th.



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Aliens vs Predator - Alien reveal trailer

There's quite a few veteran fans of the old Aliens vs Predator PC games, and Sega is preparing to hopefully not let them down from their years of waiting for a new game in the series. Today Sega has released the "Alien Reveal" trailer, enjoy.

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