News: Gaming News Round-up

Demo bounty begins

January is normally an exceptionally slow month on the gaming front. The major titles have been released the previous November and December, and the month(s) following are a little like waking up after the party and seeing how much cleaning has to be done.

The good news though is that this month sees the release of a large number of demos to wet players’ appetites. The January flood started with the release this week of demo for Final Fantasy XIII-2, as well as Asura’s Wrath, on both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. It was also revealed this week that The Darkness II demo will see the light of day on the 25^th January.

Even more interesting news on the demo front though came from an announcement that playing the Mass Effect 3 demo will unlock Shepard’s N7 armour in fantasy role playing game Kingdom of Amalur, while completing that demo will give you a pair of Omniblades.

In a similar fashion, players of the Kingdom of Amalur demo will be rewarded with the Reckoner armour and a Chakram launcher for use in Mass Effect 3.

For a sweet taste of what to expect in Mass Effect 3, take a look at the trailer below.

Pac-Man record munched

Forget about the 100 m, high jump or long jump world records, in the world of gaming there is one record that counts – the fastest time to complete Pac-man. 3 hours, 33 minutes, and 1.4 seconds - that's how long it took David Race, to get every dot, every blue ghost and every bonus fruit available on an original Pac-Man arcade machine.

Race set the record earlier this month, beating his own record by a mere 55 seconds. He achieved the maximum score of 3 333 360 on level 256, after which the game calls it quits. Watching the video is like exacting revenge for every time we got eaten by a ghost ever.

No PlayStation 4

Excited about the PlayStation 4 being announced at this year’s Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3)? Don’t be. This week, the chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, Kazuo Hirai emphatically revealed to the Wall Street Journal that Sony will not be unveiling the next iteration of its next gen console at E3, which is normally the largest platform where such announcements would be made.

This followed the let down by Microsoft earlier this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, when anticipated announcements of an Xbox 720 failed to materialise. That does not mean that Microsoft won’t unveil their next console at E3 though.

This in the face of rumours and speculation last year that both companies would unveil their new consoles in 2012, while Nintendo prepares to finally launch its next-gen offering, the Wii U.

Windows touts Xbox 360, Kinect

While Xbox 720 announcements were not made, Microsoft this week did take the opportunity to tout how well its Xbox 360 and Kinect peripheral is doing. The company reported that to date 66 million Xbox 360’s have been sold, while Kinect has garnered a respectable 18 million sales figure.

According to 1up, the Xbox 360 enjoyed its largest pre-Christmas sale to date at the end of last year, selling one million units in the US. Of course, the company also released figures for its Live service, which revealed that the service had garnered almost 40 million users. Additionally, according toAllThingsD, a report released this month revealed that the Xbox 360 accounted for some 40% of all videogame sales last year in the US.

In other words, the console still has its fair share of popularity amongst users. The flip side of this, of course, may mean that Microsoft could be in far less of a hurry to update the well aging system.

Xbox factory workers not jumping for joy

The Xbox might still be performing on the sales side, but all is not well in the land of Xbox production. The Guardian reports that workers at Foxconn Technology Group’s factory in Wuhan, China, contracted to assemble the Xbox, climbed onto a factory dormitory roof, with some even threatening to jump if a dispute regarding jobs were not resolved. Wuhan city officials managed to talk them down to return to work, and according to The New York Times, a settlement of some kind has been reached.

No surprises in South Park screenshots

At the end of last year South Park fans got in a frenzy about the new themed RPG that will be released in the second half of this year. Now THQ has made screenshots available, and not surprisingly it looks exactly like the TV series.

According to US gaming magazine Game Informer, which broke the news about South Park: The Game, you play as the new kid in town, trying to make friends with Cartman and the rest of the gang. Like many RPGs you have a choice of classes to select from: Fighter, Mage, Thief, Cleric and, uhm, Jew, just showing that the show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are keeping a watchful eye over the project.

Hell's army possesing the Vita

Some gamers are counting the days till the arrival of the PlayStation Vita. Already released in Japan, the Vita is making its SA debut on the 22nd of February. Square Enix has released a new gameplay video for Army Corps of Hell, one of the release titles for the Vita.

The video features the three classes of goblins: Soldiers, Magi and Spearman that can be commanded by the King of Hell, otherwise known as you. As much as the ear-bleeding music wants you to believe otherwise, the game looks like we’ll be in for a laugh, since the movement of your hordes of goblins is quite comical. Hit the trailer below for more.

Gaming News Round-up - Xbox edition

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