Endweek News – A writer sues Ubisoft, Halo 4 get’s a release date, Trailers for God of War and 0x10c are everywhere and Arkham City content get’s teased

Once again (due to the excuses I lined out last week) I again failed to post any Midweek News this past week. As well as that, this session of Endweek News was hastily researched and thrown together, you’ll just have to forgive me for these things as I have been rather busy. That said most of the news from this past week is actually trailers and other videos, so less reading for you guys. I will say no more on it but jump straight into the news!

Diablo 3 Beta Weekend

Hopefully, if you are looking forward to Diablo 3, you will already be aware of this. If you were not aware of this, then my apologies for not informing you sooner as time is now nearly done. Essentially, from Friday (the 20th) 21:01 CEST (19:01pm GMT), until today, (the 23rd) at 19:00 CEST (15:00 GMT) Blizzard are/were stress testing their Diablo 3 servers by having an open beta weekend where all you had to do was install the client and jump straight into the game.

The beta offered the ability to raise any of the 5 heroes to level 13 with or without friends and battle your way through the first small chunk of the action RPG.

At this late stage I would still recommend you try and get the beta as it offers around 2 hours of gameplay which easily give you a sample of what the game will be like when it’s finished.

I was not the only MMGamer to have battled my way through the demons of Diablo 3 and you can expect some videos later today and an official Impressions this Friday on the beta. Sneak preview: it’s a really good game and well worth getting (or at least, well worth playing in a free beta).

If there is still time before 3:00pm today then quickly head over here and download the game! Quickly! FLY YOU FOOLS!

God of War: Ascension teased

Like I mentioned in my previous news post Sony were teasing a new God of War image last week and they have now unleashed an official teaser trailer for God of War: Ascension. From what I can make out, the game is actually a prequel to the original game and focuses around Kratos’ (the most angry god ever) quest for freedom and then revenge.

It will also, supposedly, be the most ambitious God of War game to date, which is definitely saying something. I wonder what we can expect… Perhaps our hero will chop of a giants head, drown someone in the blood and then use the teeth as a weapon… Nah not gruesome enough…

For the teaser trailer (which honestly, doesn’t show all that much) skip down to the trailers section at the bottom.

Harley Quinn DLC teaser image

Rocksteady have released this official teaser image for the, still unannounced Harley Quinn DLC for Batman: Arkham City. Still not much to see except some smashing boots and a smashy hammer. Heehee… Smashy smashy!

Well, stealing from the Simpsons aside, there really isn’t much more to this news post. Except for me to once again say to Rocksteady “If this turns out to NOT be story DLC I’ll inject YOU guys with this TITAN thing that bothered Joker so much).

Guild Wars 2 beta

ArenaNet are running another Guild Wars 2 beta weekend next in between April 27th, at 3:00 p.m. EDT (7:00 p.m. GMT) until Monday, April 30, at 3:00 a.m (7:00 a.m. GMT). They’ve unveiled the details about what the beta will contain and about getting a key and unfortunately for us mere mortals the only sure-fire way of getting a key is to pre-order the game.

Although surely this isn’t a problem… Why have I not pre-ordered this game yet?!?

Bethesda on Prey 2

Bethesda have confirmed that Prey 2 has indeed NOT been cancelled. Development on the sequel to the popular FPS will continue but Bethesda do say that it is no longer slated for a release date this year.

The reasons given were essentially that the game doesn’t match up to the standards that Bethesda set themselves and it’s not as far along as they want it to be to say it will come out this year.

So while this is unfortunate for any fans of the original, at least they didn’t cancel it…

World’s first over-18 live ad for Prototype 2

Activision have unveiled the world’s first over-18, live outdoor ad to celebrate the release of their game, Prototype 2, tomorrow (the 24th). Earlier today (or rather, yesterday) on Sunday the 22nd Activision had actors act out a gruesome and bloody fight inspired by Prototype 2 with protagonist Sgt. James Heller fighting his nemesis Alex Mercer.

The decision over who would win the fight was made online at the Prototype Facebook page by many people voting in the poll created.

The event was streamed live and occurred after the watershed at London’s Covent Garden. I bet it must have been a sight to see…

Writer sues Ubisoft

US author, John Beiswenger, has recently filed a claim suing Ubisoft for stealing his ideas from his book, Link released in 2003, for the Assassin’s Creed series. The author said that his book details “the conception and creation of a link device and process whereby ancestral memories can be accessed, recalled, relived, and re-experienced by the user.” and that he, like Ubisoft, often mentions the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and even mentions Assassins and a battle between Good and Evil.

These details, Beiswenger believes, are all similar enough to those in the Assassin’s Creed series that he wants compensation from Ubisoft for stealing his idea, whether accidental or deliberate. And he seems to want a significant amount of money as well, $1.05 million in damages for breaking copyright and up to $5.25 million if it is deemed deliberate.

While normally this sort of thing doesn’t draw my attention, and I feel I don’t know enough about the book to make an accurate judgement over who is in the wrong, there is one truly horrific element to this story. The author, as well as wanting money from Ubisoft also wants them to stop their creation of Assassin’s Creed 3.

Let me say that again… No more… Assassin’s… Creed… Three…

Well I guess this is the night unknown author’s die…

Trailers

This week we’ve got quite a few lovely trailers for you! We’ve got a trailer from Red Vs. Blue announcing the official release date of Halo 4 to be November the 6th this year (mark the date). This will be followed by a plethora of teasers: a teaser for Crysis 3 showing off the composite bow, a teaser for 0x10c which has doesn’t really reveal anything we didn’t know, the announcement teaser for God of War: Ascension I’ve already mentioned. This will be followed by the opening cinematic for Torchlight 2 and then… something new…

I figured I would make a break here just so I could make a SPECIAL MMGaming recommendation to all you folks out there. This here is a trailer for a game I’ve never even heard of before. By Bethesda it’s set in a steampunk world and is called Dishonored… (should be Dishonoured) and more importantly than anything else… It has the best graphics I have ever seen…

We are talking, this shit is in a whole new league of it’s own. I’m not ashamed to admit… I came buckets… And I’m fairly sure you will too!