The first mission is available now – it prompts you to click here and agree on using the app. Done? That’s all! When enough fans have entered, BioWare will give out all participants a Normandy prop for their Xbox Live Avatar.

So, what about the next mission?  Mission two will be up next week, and it’s about submitting pick up lines for Liara. Winners get an early access to the Mass Effect 3 demo.

There are 11 missions in total leading up to Mass Effect 3’s March 9 outing. One of the missions (downloading the game’s demo), rewards users with a virtual t-shirt.

“GT5, the next update next Tuesday. Is scheduled for 2/7,” a tweet read from the father of the racing franchise.

Sadly, at this point, it’s unclear what new will the impending update bring with it. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see support for Gran Turismo 5 is still flowing even though it’s been available in stores since November 2010.

Lately, chatters have suggested that not much of a change will be done in the graphics department of Alan Wake PC, and thus, the psychological adventurer will look on par to the Xbox 360 outing – of course except for the resolution advantage and extra frame rates. However, according to Markus Mäki of Remedy, players on the PC platform won’t only have the benefit of gawking at the game in gorgeous 1080p or “2540p” (that’s quite extreme) for that matter, but looks like the Finnish team is opting to add more bells and whistles by tweaking areas they had to optimize for the “memory budget on Xbox 360.”

Adding “6991 textures in total” is obviously such a difficult task. The developer stated that re-texturing the whole game have proven it needed “a TON of work”; which explains why Remedy is only tweaking certain areas of the game.

Alan Wake on PC is scheduled for arrival on February 16 featuring DLC add-ons “The Writer” and “The Signal”. You can check the game’s system requirements here.

Is it me, or does 'SEN' sound sinister?

The change is touted as a means to “establishing a global comprehensive network platform of services across games, movies, music and more, all accessible from one convenient account.”

Fortunately, nothing much is needed from the user’s end – except signing a new Terms of Service. PS3 and Vita will soon require an update, formally making the change on the systems themselves. All of the account information, including IDs, addresses and passwords will stay as-is.

Sony is currently sending out emails informing PSN users of the change. If you haven’t received yours, here’s what it will say:

On February 8, 2012, your “PlayStation®Network account” will be renamed a “Sony Entertainment Network account” or a “SEN account” in conjunction with Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation®3 system software and PlayStation®Vita system software updates. (Note, this change will not be applied to the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system at this time.)

Sincerely,
The Sony Entertainment Network Team

PSN – lay peaceful, good friend.

A $23.27 billion in revenue apparently didn’t help the Japanese corporation avoid the massive loss.

Sony blames the “significant” decreased sales of its products as well as the floods in Thailand among the reasons behind the loss, while citing the price cut of the PS3 and poor sales of LCD TVs as a contributing factor “to the deterioration in operating results.”

Damage to Sony’s Thai manufacturing plants accounted for the total loss of $114 million.

Meanwhile Sony reports that 6.5 million PlayStation 3 units were sold during that period of the quarter, lifting the worldwide lifetime sales of the home console to the grand total 62 million.

Battlefield 3 was released late November and EA succeeded in grabbing a big share of the FPS market making use of an aggressive marketing, with Battlefield 3 selling 5 million copies in its debut week. On the other hand, FIFA 12 did an amazing job becoming the fastest selling sports title of all time.

Other cited sales figures include Madden NFL 12. The latest iteration in EA’s flagship American footballer netted five million copies in sales since its August release in the US and September in Europe.

Soulcalibur V takes place 17 years after Soulcalibur IV and revolves around Sophitia’s children: Patroklos and Pyrrha. The main story mode follows the siblings as they venture around the world in search for answers regarding their past as well as a method to stop the evil doings of the series main antagonist Nightmare. While this is the first time that Soulcalibur has had a full-fledged story mode instead of the usual quest mode it still leaves much to be desired. The story is nothing impressive and the mode is extremely short spanning only 20 episodes which in total will require 1-2 hours to complete. The Arcade mode is just what you expect from a fighting game. Surprisingly however the mode lacks any story bits for the characters you choose to fight with. This leaves a lot of characters without proper introductions or endings that usually provide background information on the character’s history or motives within the game. There is also the quick battle mode which has you fighting a series of opponents until you lose. As a whole the single-player modes in the game are quite lacking when compared to other popular fighting games currently in the market and are definitely the disappointing portion of Soulcalibur V.

Now that the story is out of the way, let’s talk about what really matters in a fighting game: the gameplay mechanics and character roaster. Namco did an outstanding job with the fighting system of Soulcalibur V by improving its accessibility to new players while still retaining the great deal of depth that the franchise is known for. Most Soulcalibur fans will be familiar with the system in this iteration while still having a lot of new features to delve into. It gets rid of critical finishes from previous games and instead introduces the “critical gauge” that acts as a meter which can be utilized to do devastating special attacks. Soulcalibur V involves mechanics from both 3D fighting games as well as 2D fighting games which really makes for a fantastic hybrid.

As for the character roaster, it involves a mix of both new and old faces. Lots of the new characters act as sort of successors to previous characters in the Soulcalibur series such as Patrokols resembling Sophitia. While there is a great diversity in the playstyles of most characters there are a few characters that are very similar to one another. For example, it’s weird that the game decided to go with 3 characters that essentially mimic other characters each time you play with them which seems like a rushed decision to do. The majority of the cast however does impress as they play very differently and uniquely from one another.

Soulcalibur V also brings in an updated version of the creation mode found in previous games. This mode allows you to edit characters in game appearances to a great deal of detail. It also allows for the creation of your very own character to play with both online and offline. The creation mode has a great deal of options to mess with and boasts one of the best editing and creating systems in a fighting game yet.

Online in the game felt pretty solid from what I experienced. Playing with people close to your location is non-problematic as the game masks lag well. You can choose to play in both Ranked and Player matches as well as being able to create your own lobbies to invite your friends. Soulcalibur V also has the ability to save, play, and share replays of the matches you played as well as the ability to watch other people’s replays. The online mode holds its ground very well and is probably where you will be spending the majority of your time with Soulcalibur V.

What Soulcalibur lacks in Single player content, it makes up for it by having solid gameplay mechanics, fantastic visuals, and fairly good roaster of characters. The game felt like a great mix of 3D fighters with some mechanics popularized by 2D games. If you are looking for deep gorgeous looking fighting game to pick up then look no further as Soulcalibur V is definitely one of the best fighting games to experience out there.

PC games that will be affected includes HAWX 2, Might and Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7. Mac games include Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell Conviction and The Settlers.

Ubisoft also said that multiplayer on some PC and console games will be “impacted” as well. There shift starts next week; there is no ETA on how long the move will take.