If you love point-and-click adventures, or even enjoy creative gaming ideas. Then you’re no stranger to Double Fine’s newest project. Instead of publisher backing, Tim Schaffer and team set a seemingly lofty goal of raising $400,000 through kickstarter, within 8 hours they hit that goal and are currently sitting at $1,877,815. In an email update to his backers, Mr. Schaffer announced that the game will now have voice over work in English, and that the text will be translated into E.F.I.G.S: English, French, Italian, German and, Spanish. The project will be beta tested by the backers through Steam, and upon release, those who backed the project will be able to receive a DRM free version of the game for their enjoyment. I won’t put my piracy views on the line, but 1.8 million dollars says that they’re not concerned about that issue. The game itself has been expanded to release on some Android phones, Linux, Pc, Mac, and iOS. I’m a touch jealous, 1.8 million in 6 days? This game will have to be good.

Below is the video Double Fine sent to backers, did you donate to the cause? Comment after the video.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Well, if you’re a lady. If you’re a guy, happy day like any other day that requires you to spend excess money on a female! I’m really hoping that you saved $10 on those flowers you bought her by pre-ordering Twisted Metal at GameStop.

But, with love in the air, it’s very appropriate to report the upcoming Syndicate remake will be giving me a digital boner. EA and Starbreeze studios have announced some of the voicecast. It will be featuring Brian Cox (John Landon in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and William Stryker in X-Men 2) and my celebrity crush Rosario Dawson (Death Proof, Clerks II, Sin City) as high powered executives at Eurocorp. Michael Wincott (Alien: Resurrection, The Crow) will also be joining the cast as a senior agent for Eurocorp, but I could care less about him. For me, it’s all about the lovely Rosario.

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing 2 was accidentally revealed at the Toy Fair in New York over the weekend. While the game itself has not had an official announcement from SEGA, a new line of toys from the franchise was on display. Attendants at the booth confirmed the game is in development, new characters and vehicles will be announced soon, and it should be launching Holiday 2012. Good news for those who like mascot racers.

How is it Rockstar can talk so much but say so little? They’ve recently answered a few questions on their News Wire, ostensibly about Max Payne 3 but it tended to drift off topic. Regarding the future of the L.A. Noire franchise: “While there won’t be any more DLC or additional content for the current release of L.A. Noire (we’re all too busy working on Max Payne 3, GTAV and other games to come), don’t count out the possibility of a new game in the L.A. Noire franchise in the future. We simply have not decided anything.” Wait a minute, did they mention Grand Theft Auto V? Yes they did. It will be the “largest and most ambitious open world game we’ve ever created…” That’s a bold statement.

Does anyone actually play all those crappy Wii motion games and think to themselves, “I wish they’d release this for Move on PS3?” Yeah, I didn’t think so. So why is Order Up!! doing it? And since when is “cooking” a game genre? Seriously grandma, the little ones don’t want this, please get them something fun like ModNation Racers instead. For those that still find themselves interested and refuse to go play with their shoe laces instead, this is basically a Wii port. It’ll be HD but it’s the same concept of using motion controls (Move or sixaxis) to cook in your own fake restaurant to satisfy fake whiny customers. It’s coming February 28th.

I realize fighting games never really left, but it certainly feels like they’ve been making a comeback in the last few years with Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter IV, and Marvel vs. Capcom. It seems the newest trend is a line of all-girl fighters. Skullgirls will be coming to PSN and XBLA next month. Vanguard Princess is being rumored as a downloadable title later this year. And recently announced is Girl Fight from Microprose and Kung Fu Factory. While the other games are expected to portray overly sexy and unrealistic women as a matter of course, this one seems to be banking on it. At least as far as I can see in the promotional image (side boob!). But that doesn’t mean it’s going to skip out on the story. Apparently an “array of sexy fighters” will be trying to escape “The Foundation,” a shady corporation that captures women and exploits their psionic powers, turning them into weapons. Hmm. Actually, it looks like they are skipping the story. This just seems like a pseudo-sci-fi excuse to put hot women together and watch them beat the hell out of one another. Which is fine, as long as you know the score. Despite my better judgment, I might give this a try just to see if sexy fights can make a reasonable game. It’s planned for sometime in 2012 but nothing more specific as yet.

Spin up your rumor mill, as this is totally unfounded at the moment, but it looks like Ubisoft’s full 2012 lineup has been leaked/announced. I would expect an official announcement to make a bigger splash however, as the list includes two projects that have yet to be officially listed at all, Assassin’s Creed 3 and Splinter Cell: Retribution. Both games are entirely plausible though, as Ubisoft has been on record that they’d like to make the Assassin’s Creed franchise a yearly release. As for Tom Clancy, how can you not release a game from his universe at least once a year, in this case twice? So, please consider this rumor for now, but it’s probably reliable enough to feel some excitement, here’s their list:

• Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows)
• Far Cry 3 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows)
• I Am Alive (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows)
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Retribution (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows)
• Assassin’s Creed 3 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Microsoft Windows)
• Just Dance Final Party (Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation Move)

You may remember some time ago I reported here in VGQH that a PC gamer in Europe had managed to escape the Skyrim area in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. What he found was a rudimentary map of the entire continent of Tamriel, including the Morrowind and Cyrodiil areas. Speculation at the time was that DLC would eventually be released to take you beyond the borders of Skyrim and into the wider continent. Then again, it was also possible that Bethesda was simply building the entire continent as they went along and planned to expand further for the next release. We may finally have some answers. According to director Todd Howard at DICE, it’s a little of both, it’s placeholder but it may get used:

“The reason they are there – and I will not say if we are or are not using them in the future – is when we first built the landmass for Skyrim we knew we were going to have these tall mountains.

“And what can you see see? We have views early in the project where you can see into the province from the other game. We needed to have something.

“It’s not high detail. If you walk there, from a distance it’s…yeah, the stuff is there. And the thinking is, maybe we’ll use it one day, but our larger worry was, I’m going to climb up on top of a mountain and look that way. What will I be able to see there? We try to cover all those angles as much as we can.”

If you’re getting yourself a PS Vita on early release tomorrow, or even picking one up next week, I’m thinking you want to know more about post-launch games. Sure, Escape Plan, Gravity Rush, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss look great. But what happens in two months? Just as much as initial sales, continued content is going to be important to this handheld. Sony’s got you covered for at least one more game. Being touted as the first dual analog portable FPS, Resistance: Burning Skies has finally been issued the release date of May 29th. Looks like this is the game they want you playing on those long road trips or flights when you go on vacation this summer. In addition to the dual analogs, expect to use both the front and rear touch controls. I’m guessing at least one touch screen function will deal with reloading.

And that’s it for the early edition. Enjoy your pseudo-holiday. Don’t eat too many illegible hearts. And remember, chocolate covered cinnamon bears are a disgrace to candy everywhere.

The new table from our friends at PinballFX2 is out today and I’ve got the scoop for you. This one is called Epic Quest and it is excellent for beginners. The biggest reason is because it has an RPG element to it where you can gain armor and better weapons and they hold over from one game to the next. So basically what that means is when you have sunk all three of your balls and you start over on the table, your experience and your items are still there, it’s like hitting the continue button instead of game over. So the game rewards you for the more you play, and the more you play the better you get.

In this picture you can see though it is a little small the ramp which says sword underneath. So how this table works is you are a young knight trying to defeat monsters and save the princess. There are 12 underling type monsters and then one final boss. When you fight the monsters you shoot the sword ramp to swing your sword, the shield ramp to raise you shield, the dodge ramp to dodge and so on and then when you defeat them you can loot them for better armor to help against harder bad guys. You also gain experience which helps you raise your score and that experience stays with you through multiple games.

Now here is the reason why I think this might be one of the best tables for beginners. After killing each monster you are able to shoot a ramp which lets you drop one of the balls onto this princess pictured above, when the princess has three balls you start the princess multiball. Now here’s the thing, it’s like a roulette table where you can get special bonuses by dropping each ball into one of the slots, and it’s really easy to time your shot. Well one of those slots is the extra ball and so during the multiball you need to get one of the 3 balls to trigger the extra ball basically giving you yet another chance at the table. Add to that the slot that says “add ball” which if you sink one of your multiballs you just shoot that ramp and you’re back up to 3. It’s a great combination, and because of this one of my first times playing I ended up having 7 balls instead of the usual 3, because of this extra ball slot.

After playing for a couple hours I was able to quickly get up to 150 Million in points and really felt accomplished with the table. If you haven’t picked this up yet this would be a great one to start on and the more experienced players will find this one will boost their ego quite a bit. You can get this for 240 points on Xbox, $2.49 on the PS3 of 99 cents on your iphones or androids.

Recently, I’ve been playing more and more League of Legends so I figured I’d update with new champion photos!

Enter the tank, Nautilus: The Titan of the Depths. With the ability to throw his anchor and drag himself toward it, he makes up for speed. He likes to spread his damage around for all. His passive adds a bonus damage to his first attack against a champion every twelve seconds, immobilizing them. He has a shield that can reduce damage and his anchor is HUGE!

Wielding a massive anchor and opting to wear his dive suit out of water during land/jungle combat seems a little impractical to me…but we’ll sea.

-Photos courtesy of Riot Games

If we are going to be honest with ourselves, the characters in The Legend of Zelda haven’t gotten much love in the way of action figures. Most of them have had pretty terrible sculpts and next to no articulation. Max Factory hopes to rectify that.

At the Wonder Festival 2012, Max Factory showed off some of their upcoming figma previews. What’s a figma? Max Factory’s fancy word for action figure. It will most likely have extra hands and faces to swap out for emotion. Obviously the version shown below isn’t painted, but I have high hopes for the final version. Now the only question that needs to be answered: Where will I be able to buy one of these?

Source: Zelda Dungeon

I can’t think of a better way to open a new edition of VGQH than to drop some news about my most anticipated game of the year, Mass Effect 3. It’s March 6th release date is coming up quickly and suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts. Based on the GameStop database, it appears there will be at least one piece of day one DLC for sale. The listing is for something called “From Dust” and runs $9.99. Apparently this will be one of the add-ons you can get by purchasing the download code from the store instead of purchasing directly from your download service. The only listing I’ve seen is XBox 360. That doesn’t mean it’s console-exclusive, just that I didn’t personally see the item available for PS3. I have my own theory that this might be related to the inevitable online pass from EA. This could be something you’ll get for free with your new copy and the $9.99 fee is for used buyers. Until we get some sort of official confirmation from EA or BioWare, let’s just take this with a grain of salt. Just know that it probably does exist and we’ll know more about it soon.

The recently released NeverDead got an official DLC announcement. “The NeverDead Expansion Pack Volume 1″ will be available February 21st. By the title I would assume this is only the first of at least two add-ons. No price has been given yet, but we do have the full run down of the contents, including the three new challenges in the expanded Asylum:

• New Character: Play as the fashionable, charismatic pop-idol, Nikki Summerfield in cooperative challenges with your friends through online multiplayer.
• Egg Hunt: Scour the expanded Asylum level for collectables scoring points by delivering them to designated “Score Zones”. Make sure to hold on tight to your collectibles as opponents can snatch any that you drop along the way. With enemy ambush points and environmental hazards at every turn, this challenge is tricky!
• Fragile Alliance: A competitive race through a number of checkpoints spread across the map. You can interrupt other player’s progress by attacking each other. The increase of environmental hazards and enemy spawn points will keep you on your toes.
• Onslaught: Unlock the entire Asylum level section-by-section by defeating all enemies.. Demon-seals that block off areas will dissipate as you defeat enemies from the previous area, providing more-controlled player movement and encounters.
• Two Additional Character Costumes: Dress Bryce up in these new costumes before going back into the online fray.

As we look through past generations of gaming mascots, especially in platformers, it should come as no surprise that Sackboy is making the transition to a new style of game. Although, with ModNation Racers already in existence, I’m not sure I understand why Media Molecule even wants to make LittleBigPlanet Karting. It was announced at the recent Destination PlayStation event along with a new Move steering wheel. That’s all I have on it for now. As soon as I hear more you’ll read about it here.

This is going to make my head hurt. There was once this weird board game that involved calling out numbers on a grid. My wife cheats at it and I’ll never play it with her again. Someone got the idea of making a movie about it (and it looks awful). Now Activision apparently thinks there should be a video game based on the movie, which I’m sure will also be terrible. I actually remember playing a video game version of Battleship as a kid. It didn’t make much sense for the format then. It still doesn’t. But people who wear suits want to buy more of them, so Double Helix is developing this movie tie-in to be released in the US on May 15th. Apparently the game play will be a combination strategy/FPS, featuring both “siege on the sea” and “war on the shore.” Seriously? We’re making entire games based on bad pitches from overpaid ad-men? I am now asking the entire gaming world for a favor. Please do not buy, rent, speak of, or tweet about this game. Let it idly go into the junkyard where they buried E.T.

Twisted Metal comes out next week, but it’s not the only car combat game to draw some attention. Wheels of Destruction: World Tour is coming to PSN “soon.” Will it be as dark and twisted as Sweet Tooth’s explosive mayhem? Probably not. But that’s not a bad thing. If nothing else it provides an option for a different market of gamers. But just because it might be “T” or “E” rated doesn’t mean it’s just for kids. It’s still post-apocalyptic carnage in a variety of arenas around Europe. It appears there will be at least two modes (Capture the Flag and Deathmatch), five vehicles, and five maps. So, slightly limited in scope, but it’s a PSN game. I’m expecting a $10-15 price tag, with a likely discount (or free) for PS+ members.

I don’t tend to care much what sales figures have to say, but it’s worth mentioning that Batman: Arkham City has shipped (not sold) 6million units since its release in October 2011. This certainly has gone a long way to boost the financial reports for Warner Bros., who reportedly are up about $200million in income over the last year (totalling $1.3million). Considering these numbers, plus the universal acclaim the game received, this spells out one thing to me: TRILOGY! I can’t wait to hear more.

After being lambasted for simply reiterating previous mechanics in the latest release, Activision is promising “meaningful innovation” in the next Call of Duty. As expected, work has already started on the next title (possibly called Call of Duty: Iron Wolf) and is likely to release this fall. In addition to game play changes, Eric Hirschberg (CEO) told investors they “plan to launch additional features [for Call of Duty: Elite] in the next 60 days.” They’re also “already hard at work on Elite 2.0 with several innovative features being developed to work hand in hand with our next Call of Duty release.”

Nothing special to say to finish out the week, so make sure you get caught up on all of Zombietron’s gaming stories from throughout this week:

New Skylanders
Sleeping Dogs
Diablo III
Unboxing Vita
Double Fine Kickstarter

In just over 24 hours Double Fine studios raised over 1 million dollars to make a new adventure game, simply titled, “Double Fine Adventure”. The goal for Double Fine was set at $400,000, $300,000 will be used to create the game, and $100,000 will be utilized to film the entire creation process. Gamer’s can contribute as little as $1, per the Kickstarter policy, but the real rewards begin at $15.00. For a scant $15.00 you are given PC Beta access, a full copy of the completed game, access to the video series, and access to the private discussion community where you can share input on the game. The prizes continually increase, and even go as far as to hit the already sold out lunch with Tim Schafer himself.

Truthfully the real story is what fans will do to support their products. In just over a day Double Fine has enough money to make this game 3 times. I hate to make this a rant on Sopa or Pipa but this truthfully goes back to the piracy issue. If you provide a product your community wants, in a way that they want it, they’ll pay for it. Double Fine couldn’t get funding for an adventure game, so they got funding for it from their audience. In a scant few days the game is funded, and they can begin production, and then they can sell it to their public with no out of pocket expenses to recoup. They have no reason to be scared of piracy, their game is covered, and any additional sales are profit. Proof that the only way for an industry to survive, is to adapt.

Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert have proven once again that they can redefine an industry and cater to the hardest to please group of consumers in the industry. I cannot wait to receive my copy, watch the web series, and play the beta. I realize it’s at it’s goal times 3, but I guarantee your support will be put to good use, feel free to donate here

Thoughts after the video.

This is the official Sony unboxing video posted to the Playstation Blog earlier today. It’s a great information piece and answers a ton of questions about the first edition bundle. Such as, why am I paying $50.00 more than the average joe?

The biggest reason is getting it a week before everyone else, but the additional content adds value as well.

To sum up the video the first edition bundle comes with

• 4 gig mem card
• Little Deviants, thankfully a physical copy
• Limited edition hard case
• AR cards for the Augmented Reality features
• AC adapter and data cable
• 1 free month of 3g data (250 meg)
• a free psn game with activation of your data connect

The video has me more excited than I’ve been previously, next week heralds the beginning of Zombietron Vs. Vita.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPQz0NyW0MU

During Activisions Q4 Financial Report today they shared a target window for Diablo III to be Q2 of 2012, which puts them in an April-June time frame. Shocked? You shouldn’t be, this is Blizzard’s M.O. for almost any release, it’s ready when it’s ready. With no gold date declare the March date everyone was touting was realistically a placeholder for companies to take reservations. Should it be March? The Beta seems complete, the game looks ready. Do I wish it was March? Yes. On a lighter note, here’s the intro cinematic to calm your need, or partially scratch the itch. Comments after the video.

From United Front Games, and Square Enix London, comes Sleeping Dogs. A gritty Hong Kong based cop drama, promising intense gun fights, combat, and story. The studio was working on True Crime: Hong Kong for Activision before the project was scrapped about one year ago. Instead of buying the I.P. it looks like Square Enix will instead be releasing the amped up action shooter as it’s own series. If the game offers half of what the live action trailer portrayed it could be absolutely phenomenal. The game can be expected during the second half of 2012 barring any delays. If anything this trailer is a good watch for action fans. Thoughts after the trailer!