It looks like the MOBA genre will be getting a new entry in just under two weeks. Developer Petroglyph has announced that its minion-stomper Rise of Immortals will officially launch on September 12. Like its closest kin, League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, Rise of Immortals will be free-to-play and will allow users to purchase new characters and items with the money of real Earth.

Petroglyph reminds prospective online gladiators that there's still time to take part in the open beta. Doing so will reward players with 1,000 Petroglyph Coins (worth more than ten dollars) and an exclusive "King of Bling" character skin, which the studio describes as "a dazzling gold version of the robot-suited Psychozen." Seems like a pretty good deal for anyone thinking about trying the game -- and, really, who doesn't want to be dazzled once in a while?

You can register for the beta right here.

Continue Reading

Looking for something new to play on the cheap? Well, Amazon has a bunch of deals it'll be rolling out all day long, starting with discounted copies of Nail'd and Dungeon Siege 3 for the Xbox 360. Here's the breakdown:

• 11am PT: Dungeon Siege 3 on Xbox 360 ($34.99) and Nail'd on Xbox 360 ($9.99)
• 1pm PT: "The Man of Steel always gets the babes" (Duke Nukem?) and "This Collector's Edition comes straight from Vault Tec" (Fallout 3?)
• 3pm PT: "Battle your way across this limited edition's heat-blasted wasteland" (Fallout: New Vegas?) and "Get ready for the sequel by playing this original role playing shooter" (Borderlands?)

Need for Speed: Shift is the one constant today. Amazon is offering the PS3 version for a reasonable $9.99.

Saddle up your horses, load up your guns, and grease that completely ridiculous mustache: Red Dead Redemption's next, totally free DLC pack is coming in a little under two weeks. The previously announced "Myths and Legends" expansion will hit the PSN and XBLM on September 13, adding a whole slew of new multiplayer maps, modes and characters. Check out a full list of the newcomers after the jump.

We're not sure how much of the original Red Dead community has stuck around to indulge in these new offerings, but if there's anything that can bring errant sheep back into the fold, it's the glorious, waxy soupcatcher of Landon Ricketts, pictured above. Oh, to be a fly on that mustache.

Continue Reading

If you've yet to meet Letitia in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, then go ahead and watch the above clip. Originally pointed out by Time's Evan Narcisse in this article, to some (including Evan) Letitia has come off as a pretty racist character. According to a statement from Square Enix, that was (unsurprisingly!) never the intention.

"Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a fictional story which reflects the diversity of the world's future population by featuring characters of various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds," the statement reads. "While these characters are meant to portray people living in the year 2027, it has never been our intention to represent any particular ethnic group in a negative light."

Whether or not Letitia was created to paint "any particular ethnic group in a negative light," many feel she does.

Just 15 years ago, if you could make a few bucks selling homemade charm bracelets through Prodigy, you were in the vanguard of digital revenue. These days, while the model's still the same, the scale is just a bit different. Take Activision for instance: The company announced during its Analyst Day presentation that it made $1.7 billion in digital revenue over the last 12 months. We're not sure what that works out to in charm bracelets, but it's a lot.

Though World of Warcraft has always done huge digital business, the company has gotten a big boost this year from Call of Duty: Black Ops and its hugely popular DLC. As you can see in the chart above, this year's earnings are a big jump from 2010 and 2009, which respectively brought in $1.4 and $1.2 billion digital dollars.

Note: When Diablo 3 launches, Blizzard will be taking undetermined fees off the top of player-to-player items sales. So look out for the 2012 Analyst Day when Activision will have to use at least some of the digi-revenue to buy a taller chart.

There are quite a few folks with either an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Just over 23 million, in fact, as of numbers tallied following the first nine months of sales by its publisher. Activision revealed as much during an analyst call this afternoon, showing continued sales growth for the Call of Duty franchise versus install base numbers for the two HD consoles combined.

If that weren't enough, it looks like a huge chunk of those who purchased BlOps were interested in adding to their multiplayer map variety. Activision's numbers show the latest CoD entry as having moved over 18 million map packs since launch (which, priced at $15 a pop, works out to 270 million dollars in gross earnings), 7 million more than MW2 and 9 million more than WaW.

Though the company isn't projecting any map sales yet for the next installment in the CoD franchise, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said on the call, "There's plenty of runway this year, with 20 percent-plus expected growth in the HD console install base alone," referring to the company's expected sales of Modern Warfare 3 this holiday and beyond.

Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in, with our Portabliss column. In each installment, we'll tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Jetpack Joyride.

---

The free NES games in Nintendo's 3DS Ambassador Program arrived at an awkward time, because the standout of that group for me, Balloon Fight, is now getting overshadowed by the many jetpacks of Barry Steakfries. Like Halfbrick's Monster Dash before it (and Balloon Fight's "Balloon Trip" mode long before that), Jetpack Joyride takes the autorunning genre defined on iOS by Canabalt and adds a few kinks.

Unlike Monster Dash, however, Jetpack Joyride is deep, with a mess of power-ups, vehicles, and mechanical and aesthetic additions. I was repeatedly taken aback by how fleshed out Halfbrick has made its latest iOS game, and repeatedly charmed by the studio's presentation. Nods to past Halfbrick titles abound (beyond the main character's return from previous iOS games), and the inclusion of an entire vehicle poking fun at the iPhone's most popular franchise lends an extra layer of levity to the already cheeky proceedings.

Continue Reading

Sucker Punch and Sony are teasing Infamous 2: Festival of Blood with a brief cutscene. It shows a shriveled corpse drinking superhero Cole McGrath's blood, in order to resurrect as some kind of super-vampire. If that's the kind of imagery that interests you, we suspect you'll find a lot more of it in the PSN game.

After all, it's not only about fighting vampires -- your character becomes a vampire himself. This will be the go-to game for scenes of blood drinking, electrocution, and, we're guessing, bloodtrocution.

Sony has big plans for PlayStation Vita at TGS. Its newly announced show lineup contains 13 Vita games, including Uncharted, Gravity Daze, Disgaea 3 Return, the Little King's Story sequel, and more (full list after the break). In addition to those, the Sony booth will host 18 unannounced games.

That booth (which must be very large) will also show five PSP games -- one of which is the Yakuza PSP sequel -- and a bunch of PS3 games. Oh, and the unannounced "Happy Charlie and the Flying Carnival" will be there. We don't know what that is, but it sounds delightful.

Continue Reading

Mafia 2 and Top Spin 4 developer 2K Czech has laid off up to 40 from its Brno arm and less than 10 from its Prague branch according to a report from Develop. The cuts represent a loss of between 20-25 percent for the formerly 200-strong 2K Czech.

The studio told Develop the cuts are more about slimming down than changing directions, saying it "has realigned its resources to streamline the development process, reduce costs and maximize studio performance."

You always hate to hear about job cuts of any kind, and you can count on staffers from 2K Czech to have plenty of colorful ways to express their frustration.

Sega's two newest iPhone games are really only similar in that Sega announced them at roughly the same time -- they make for a weird juxtaposition. Brick People is an adaptation of a cute arcade game about stacking physical blocks to guide on-screen characters -- of course, now, the blocks are virtual too.

Samurai Bloodshow is a card-based war game made in a traditional Japanese art style. Do you want to see pastel bricks or vintage murder? Your choice!

You can catch a Samurai Bloodshow today on iPhone or iPad for two bucks. Brick People will finally climb up to the App Store sometime this fall.

Continue Reading

Hogrocket, the "micro-studio" formed by ex-Bizarre staffers (including Geometry Wars designer Stephen Cakebread), has released Tiny Invaders. The team's first iOS game tasks players with controlling "a crazy band of space germs sent from outer space to take over the world." To accomplish this goal, the germs leap from one host body to another, controlling minds and working up to the host with the most, the President of the United States.

Tiny Invaders is available now on the iPhone and iPod Touch for $3.99. Check out some germ-infested screens in the gallery below, and be sure to wash your hands when you're done.

Continue Reading

In case you missed it yesterday, the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program has officially launched. Those who signed up to the eShop before August 11 can now download ten NES games from the eShop, though it's an annoying process.

If you can't get into the 3DS Embassy, it's a much less exciting week. The Game Boy version of Pac-Man awaits 3DS owners, and a House, MD game is up on DSiWare. There's a bit of intrigue, however, in a WiiWare tower defense game called Trenches Generals.

Continue Reading

You don't normally expect a company to release a well-reviewed hit in May and then enter administration three months later, but L.A. Noire maker Team Bondi is following a strange, tumultuous timeline. SmartCompany reports that the Sydney-based studio has been placed into administration, with accounting firm de Vries Tayeh handling the ongoing process.

A company in turmoil can be placed into administration to help facilitate payments to creditors, possibly through sale of assets or parts of the company. It's not known how exactly administration will proceed with Team Bondi, but earlier reports suggested that company assets were acquired by Kennedy Miller Mitchell (KMM), an Australian production company thought to be working on a Mad Max game. Staff at Team Bondi were reportedly offered jobs at KMM if they did not take severance pay.

If you're looking for further developments regarding the L.A. Noire franchise, it will be have to be at Rockstar -- the publisher owns the rights to what is likely to be the last game from Team Bondi as we knew it.

Arc System Works and developer Million, a group of former Technos employees, have resurrected the Kunio series (which we know best from River City Ransom) in recent years with DS-based games like Super Dodge Ball Brawlers, River City Soccer Hooligans, and River City Sports Challenge. Now, the pair appear to be returning to the origin of the series, with a 3DS game called Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun (Hot Blooded Tough Guy Kunio-kun).

That same title was used for the first game in the series, the absolutely terrible brawler we know as Renegade. We're hoping Arc is using that title to refer to the overarching series, and not actually returning to the wooden Renegade gameplay style. Or maybe making the same kind of game ... except not awful.

[Image: Hardcore Gaming 101]

D3 Publisher is reportedly working on yet another Onechanbara game, the second for Xbox 360. Onechanbara Z: Kagura replaces the familiar cast of characters (bikini-clad, katana-wielding Aya, her sister Saki, and cloned Reiko) with vampires named Kagura and Saaya. Don't worry; we're sure they'll be inappropriately dressed as well. We're sure the rest of the game will match up with what we know from the series: thousands of easily-killed zombies surrounding you at all times.

The Xbox-exclusive game will be released in Japan this winter. An "Onechanbara 2" listing was found earlier this summer on Play.com, suggesting that D3 is planning a western release as well. D3 is likely crunching to get it done as soon as possible, as it'll face competition from another "cute girl slashing zombies" game – one that has the potential to actually be good, instead of "so bad it's good."