As the name suggests, the game is based in the future. However, not a very distant future. The developers of the game stress that they’ve tried to stay as true to reality as possible. The weapons featured in the game are already either being employed by Special Forces at the moment or are in the testing phase to be made available soon. Like most Tom Clancy games, Future Soldier is all about realism and Ubisoft have employed the services of four navy seals who’ve helped make sure the motion capture is as realistic as possible and that the game stays true to reality.

The game is set in different locales ranging from Bolivia to Peshawar. For our first look at the game, we’re going to talk about the map based in Peshawar. It was particularly interesting, as it was an urban setting. The mission starts in the middle of the city and you have a lot of civilians around. In order to mark out your enemies and differentiate them from civilians, you have to use one of the intel gadgets. You can either use a sensor grenade, which will mark out all enemies in it’s radius or use the drone to give you an aerial view of your enemies. Once your enemies are marked, you can use the magnetic view, which is a sort of X-ray mode to reveal enemies hiding behind cover.

Among the many futuristic gadgets at your disposal is optical camouflage. It’s like an invisibility cloak that you can turn on and it works when you’re moving slowly are or stationary.

A range of weapons are also at your disposal and each of them are customizable to your liking. A special “gunsmith” mode is also available for Kinect users who want to customize their weapons Minority Report-style. Those more comfortable with button mashing than waving hands and using cumbersome hand gestures can stick to their controllers while using the “gunsmith” mode.

While there’s loads of futuristic weapons to play with, the real focus of the game is the squad based combat. This is where the realism really kicks in and you get the feel of what being part of a Special Forces team is like. If you’ve played GR:AW, you’ll appreciate how much the squad management has been simplified. At a basic level, killing your enemies usually means identifying them via intel devices, using stealth and camoflauge to get into the right positon, tagging the enemies, so that your squad has them positioned in their line of sight and are ready to take them out on command, and finally initiating the kill sequence. You also have the option to get a team member to take out an opponent directly.

In addition to all this, Ubisoft gets so much right with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Character animations are realistic, levels are well detailed and the explosions can be breath taking. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier releases in May 2012. Watch out for a full review on MEGamers once the game is out.

The game will have “stunning graphics and authentic weapons and powers from the Mass Effect series,” and a story revolving around rescuing prisoners from a Cerberus base. Players are to collect evidence of Cerberus crimes, which will play out as ‘rewards’ for the Galaxy At War system in Mass Effect 3.

“Every completed rescue and intelligence discovery in Infiltrator will increase a player’s Galactic Readiness rating directly through the ‘Galaxy at War’ system in Mass Effect 3.”

There is no date on when the shooter will be available; we are guessing at Mass Effect 3′s launch on March 6th. Kotaku has a video of it here.

And if you thought that was enough smartphone-loving from BioWare, you are wrong. Because there is one more app in the works, and it’s called ‘Datapad’. Like the name would suggest, it will allow players to “stay in touch with all of the info in Mass Effect 3,” like keeping a watch over the galaxy map, receive war status and messages from game characters, etc.

Both apps are iOS exclusive.

The mod is called ‘Fall of the Space Core, Vol.1′ and is now available to download from Steam. Here’s what the official description says:

“To celebrate the opening of the Steam Workshop for Skyrim, Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to bring you the Portal 2 Space Core mod, which will let the aggressively space-centric little robot tag along on your adventures in Tamriel.

Also, since Skyrim was the only major release of 2011 without Nolan North in it, you should consider this mod a patch to fix that problem. You can now feel free to include Skyrim in the “Nolan North” section of your video game library, which is to say, your video game library.”

You can’t do much with it, however. It doesn’t hover around you, inform you of imminent dragon attack, or even humor when you are feeling forever alone. You can play football, but that’s probably it.

Along with the Skyrim Creation Kit that can be downloaded through Steam, Bethesda also put out another gift that should bring a smile onto the face of PC gamers.

“Mod-makers have a long history with Bethesda Game Studios, bringing to life new quests, locations and characters, as well as making changes to game from subtle tweaks to full-blown overhauls,” said level designer Joel Burgess. “With the Creation Kit, the same tool we used to create Skyrim, there’s almost no limit to what can be accomplished – and we’re putting that power in your hands.”

Do you recall the “special surprise” that Bethesda has been teasing for today? This should please PC gamers whose rigs are ready to take on any form of graphical challenge. Ok I’ll stop now – it’s a high-resolution texture pack. Yay!

Before downloading from Steam, Bethesda wants you to “make sure your system requirements exceed Skyrim’s recommended specs before attempting to install, including a minimum of 4GB of system RAM and a DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with at least 1 GB of RAM and the latest drivers.”

If that rings a bell, yes, it is the same emblem that was featured in a leaflet with all new Battlefield 3 copies. The game was teased since October last year.

We are pretty sure it’s a new Medal of Honor. The franchise was rebooted in 2010 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Think Electronic Arts will let that go?

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.

Hawken is an MMOFPS that will feature two unique mech-applying game modes, plus the traditional team deathmatch and free-for-all deathmatch modes. It is being developed using the Unreal Engine 3 and is planned for a multi-platform release, however nothing is confirmed on that end, so just hold onto the PC version for now.

Since the release is almost a year away, the developers have kindly started Beta signups for the game. You can do so here and claim your spot. Refer to three more friends and you will be able to reserve a place.

Well, get going. It’s mech and MMO, and FPS. What’s more there to know?

From the very moment you launch Star Wars: The Old Republic, you’re sucked into this fantastic world that you instantly want to be a part of. You want to believe that you can dual-wield lightsabres or fling debris at your foes. You want to electrocute everyone who dares to challenge you. You want to travel into the deep realms of space and bring justice to alien planets. Everywhere you go, you either feel like a true soldier of the Republic or an instrument of destruction as the Sith Empire. And it’s a feeling truly worth relishing. Right from the opening scene featuring the iconic Star Wars text crawl, you know you’re stepping into sacred territory.

After drooling over the gorgeous opening cinematic, you get to choose your faction and one of nine races. You then choose one of four classes to play as – each class has an appropriate choice depending on which faction you’ve selected. After a few mostly cosmetic changes to your character, you’re ready to begin your adventure. My first character was a Jedi Knight, so I began my training on Tython in the ways of the Jedi. The world is beautiful, inhabited by fierce and tame creatures as well as the now feared Flesh Raiders who are attacking the natives as well as Jedi trainees. If you’ve played any recent MMO, the controls and interface will be very familiar. Even if you’re new to the MMO genre, the game gently gives you tips about how to play the game, and Bioware themselves have started releasing in-depth video guides for new players to follow. Once you’ve become familiar with the controls, you can pick up your first few quests on your path to being a seasoned player.

One thing I will remark about the quests in SWTOR is that they never feel monotonous or forced. Even though your initial quests will be of the fetch variety, it never feels this way, unlike other MMOs. A bonus is that as you’re progressing through on quest, you may inadvertently trigger a side quest that you can complete for extra XP. Every quest you is taken on through a conversation with an NPC, and it’s great that you actually get to have a conversation with characters rather than just hitting “Accept” on a quest. The hundreds of hours of dialogue recorded for this game really makes a difference, and the conversation wheel gives you a number of choices that can turn a conversation around at any time. In addition to providing a more engaging experience to the game, conversations with NPCs can also shift your alignment with the Force, so it’s worthwhile keeping a track on what you’re saying to people.

When I first saw Q.U.B.E at E3, it did fascinate me somewhat. Here was a game that was made by a small group of developers, that was able to showcase a rather impressive looking piece of work on a rather humble bit of funding. While that statement still holds true, there’s still plenty that needs to be plugged into the game in order for it to become a game worth playing through. You start the game with your character waking up and lying down on a descending platform. Your surroundings don’t give you any clue about what has happened or where you are, and all you notice are the futuristic gloves that your character is wearing. As you walk forward you notice colored blocks in the level, and its these blocks that you need to manipulate in order to get through the game. Red blocks can be pulled out to a certain degree, yellow ones come in groups of thee, blue ones can be used to bounce off, and so forth. The game does an excellent job of slowly introducing players to the various block types before finally mixing the block types and introducing some rather quirky puzzles.

You will need to deftly master the various block types in order to progress, and while the initial levels are just a case of sliding out the right blocks, the later levels introduce laser-bending spheres and magnets, which not only makes things tricky but also fiendishly difficult at times. While you’d expect the magnets to actually behave like magnets, they often lead to very finicky control issues when trying to maneuver the blocks, simply because they don’t snap in place properly.

But really what disappointed me about Q.U.B.E was its complete lack of personality. While Portal has GLaDOS spewing her quirky comments to prevent the game from being monotonous, Q.U.B.E has no such luck and ends up being just one puzzle after another. You’re not really compelled to progress much through the game, unless you really are adamant on solving every single puzzle in the game. And even when you reach the very last puzzle and finish the game, there’s no sense of accomplishment or real achievement, as the ending scene unfolds much like Portal did. After all of the hellish puzzles and the effort you’ve gone through, any anticipation for a substantial reward will rapidly vanish, so prepare yourself.

Graphically the game does look quite crisp, showcasing some rather impressive geometric effects as walls slide and twist to reveal different areas. The lighting effects applied to the cubes in certain levels makes a start contrast to the usual clinical appearance of the game, though solving these illuminated puzzles successfully is another matter.

Q.U.B.E is a decent indie attempt, but its similarities to Valve’s masterpiece cannot be ignored, and it’s this constant comparison that will be its downfall. While the effort has to be applauded, at its most basic level Q.U.B.E exhibits very little to engage players, and as such won’t keep your attention for very long.