There is little point in me explaining the back story to the Prototype games in detail – as you can very easily get a good run down of the game on Wikipedia – but for the few of you who need reminding Prototype is an open world game which saw the (anti-) hero, Alex Mercer, become some sort of super being with various abilities – mainly shape shifting, inhuman strength, and my favourite one, the ability to run up walls – which he would use to try and find out…well basically everything about himself; from how he came to have powers to why Blackwatch were doing what they were doing. You also destroy a huge chunk of New York City for shits and giggles.

Now I can’t go into too much detail about Prototype 2 at this point, but thankfully vague statements are what I’m sort of okay at doing every now and again. So here we go -

• If you’ve checked out the trailer for Prototype 2 you should know that instead of playing as Alex Mercer, you now take control of ex-military man, James Heller, who decides that Mercer needs to die for releasing the virus, thus killing Heller’s wife and child. What I found interesting is that the game brings in a twist that means things aren’t as straight forward as just killing Mercer.
• There are a bunch of new weapons that will make things extremely interesting, especially for those among you who enjoyed the Saw movies a tad too much, and like finding interesting ways to kill and maim people. No doubt I could have sat for half a day messing around with the different powers.
• Remember that part in the trailer where Heller basically rips apart a helicopter with this power called ‘tendrils’? Those are the best. While I didn’t work out how to go about deconstructing helicopters with what I can only describe as really meaty spider webs, I did realise that tendrils bring me more pleasure than about 65% of adulterated activities.
• Aesthetically, Prototype 2 is definitely a head above its predecessor with each of the three zones that make up New York City being uniquely created to stand apart from each other. You can easily tell the differences between being in the Green, Yellow, or Red zone, as each zone is different as opposed to being a carbon copy with more infected/soldiers to kill as a way of denoting the area.
• At one point while playing through the game I used the whipfist power, and while my brain wanted me to react and pick up my jaw from the ground, as well as wipe away the pool of drool; my gaze was fixed. The aesthetic qualities of a group of people’s upper bodies simultaneously sliding off of their bottom halves  is quite possibly the most beautifully grotesque thing I’ve ever seen, and subsequently made it incredibly hard to tear my eyes away.
• The open world aspect of the game is just as good, if not better, than the first game. You definitely need to time to explore the zones so you can find the perfect building to dive bomb people from.
• Going back to the storyline of Prototype 2, it has to be said that from my point of view the game seems a bit more straight forward and less likely to alienate players with a character like Mercer, who I found to be incredibly unlikeable. With Heller, players have a character they can sympathise with and root for, and in the end that allows for greater immersion into the game.

That’s about it for now. Expect our full hands-on preview in the coming week.

The developer has sent out no less than 100,000 beta keys to North American players today. So, yes, you do need an American account to play the beta. If you are outside of USA, and have an American account, the beta key will work without problems.

And your emails shall tremble.

While you are accessing your beta, Blizzard heeds players to take pre-caution against imminent phishing attempts, and has suggested against click any links present in the beta invite email.

“Some unscrupulous individuals send out falsified emails purporting to be from Blizzard, but are in fact meant to steal your login credentials. For more information on how to identify these emails please refer to our Battle.net Security site. One easy way to ensure your invite is legit is to avoid clicking on links in any invite emails you receive, and instead log in to your Battle.net account and see if you have a Diablo III beta license attached. If there’s no license you can be sure the email you received was not from Blizzard.

Those who have found themselves into the beta, try and leave a little bit of feedback over here and here.

Take that PC!

The game, originally scheduled to release on April 27 in Europe/PAL countries, will now be available on July 24th. No reason was given for the delay, however Radical has promised to “share more details with you soon.”

The Xbox 360 and PS3 version are on track for a April 27th release.

After Dotcom got arrested last week, his title was lost to Azaros, and is now positioned at number two.

Dotcom made a short home video as part of the celebration for making it to number one. The video shows him playing on a massive television, while another one ticks the hours he’s been at it. The setup is only a small part of his lavish life style. Apparently, he is worth $175 million, and owns numerous expensive automobiles, some of which includes a 1959 Cadillac and a Rolls Royce Phantom. He also has a gamer’s heaven built inside his home, with an entire wall lined up with 60-inch TVs, Xbox 360 consoles and Lazyboy recliners.

According to their calendar, the game is set receive ten new maps, six new spec ops missions and two new online modes. The schedule applies to Elite subscribers only, of course; non-paying members will have to wait their turn to get their hands on them.

- February: New map
- March: New map, two new Spec Ops missions
- April: Two new maps
- May: New map, new Spec Ops mission
- June: New map, new Spec Ops mission, new game mode
- July: Two new maps
- August: New map, new Spec Ops mission, new game mode
- September: New map, new Spec Ops mission

This month’s share of DLC, the new maps called Liberation and Piazza, are now available on Xbox Live. PS3 and PC release follow some time later.

“With the Call of Duty: MW3 Content Season for Call of Duty Elite, we are delivering on our promise of more new content, more often, and with more variety than ever,” said Activision publishing CEO Eric Hrishberg.

The first DLC nugget is planned for Jan 24 featuring multiplayer maps Liberation and Piazza. Four more content packs will be dropped in the first three months of 2012, with at least one more in Jan, one in Feb and two in March. These five DLCs will also be packaged together for the “entire”, non-COD Elite Premium subscribers. The DLCs, including the content collection, will maintain its timed exclusivity to Xbox 360.

Modern Warfare 3 was released on November 8 and has so far earned Activion a billion dollars, despite being the second most pirated game of last year. I can only imagine the Activision executives like this when they read the report.

The trailer, pasted below, shows actors Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill fending off unseen combatants in an overly exaggerated ‘online match’, with the tagline “There’s a soldier in all of us,” punctuating the climax.

[jwplayer config="meg_600px" mediaid="49010"]

“The advertisement trivializes combat and sanitizes war,” he said.

“After ten years of constant war, of thousands of amputees and flag-draped coffins, of hundreds of grief-stricken communities, did nobody involved in this commercial raise a hand and say, ‘You know, this is probably a little crass. Maybe we could just show footage from the game.’”

“As Afghanistan intensifies and we assess the mental and physical damage to veterans of Iraq, is now really the time to sell the country on how much fun the whole enterprise is?” he asked.

“Here I point to the giddy howls of one supposed soldier in the commercial as he fires a grenade launcher at some off-screen combatant. War is great, see? It’s like a gritty Disneyland.”

Summary judgement, from what the Internet tells us, is when a court rules that no factual issues remain to be tried, and therefore a settlement can be had, based on certain facts, without going to trial.

A summary judgement call from the developers was denied as well.

The press release also states that Judge Elihu Berle found that the evidence presented by Activision “supplied a basis” for a jury to conclude that EA, may have in fact, aided and abetted West and Zampella to breach their contracts.

A jury trial in the case will begin on May 7, 2012.

Press release:
Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced that the Los Angeles Superior Court has denied a motion brought by Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA) for summary judgment, thereby permitting Activision to proceed to trial on its $400 million contract-interference suit against EA.. At a hearing held yesterday, December 21, 2012, Judge Elihu Berle denied EA’s motion, finding that the evidence presented by Activision supplied a basis for a jury to potentially conclude both that EA had intentionally interfered with Activision’s employment agreements with former Call of Duty game developers, Jason West and Vince Zampella, and that EA had aided and abetted West and Zampella’s breach of fiduciary duties to Activision. A related summary judgment motion put forth by West and Zampella was also denied.

In the suit Activision alleges that West and Zampella breached their contracts and duty of loyalty to Activision by conduct that was insubordinate and otherwise improper and that West and Zampella’s misconduct was caused, at least in part, by EA’s unlawful tampering. A jury trial in the case is scheduled to begin on May 7, 2012.

While the details are scarce, creative strategist Robert Bowling said the DLCs for Modern Warfare 3 will be much more varied than those for the previous installments. It’s the perks of having three development teams – Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games and Raven – on it, apparently.

“The way we’re doing downloadable content this year is unlike we’ve never done before,” he said. “Not only in how you can get it – in content drops or choose for the collection – but also the type of content you’re getting. We’re doing more than just maps. We’re going to do Spec Ops missions and a variety of things that players have never seen before.

“That’s the great thing about having three developers that are contributing to the season of content. You have Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer and Raven all pitching in.”

The DLC will be exclusive to Elite members at first, which will then trickle down to Xbox 360 users, and then PSN and PC users. ’tis how it works, man.