At E3 2013, one of the bigger games demonstrated to a favourable reception was Tom Clancy’s The Division. Shown off at the event using the new Snowdrop engine the game looked good and the game was very well talked-about about after the event. The game was scheduled to be released at some unscheduled time this year, but now the word’s come through that the game has been delayed until some unscheduled time in 2015 purely so Ubisoft can work on making sure the game works.

It doesn’t really come as a surprise. There’s been little word on the game since E3 ’13 and games get delayed all the time these days, release dates pushed back to allow for games to be tweaked to a level closer to perfect due to unexpected obstacles appearing. At the very least, pushing back a release date to make sure a game is working properly is preferable to games that get released in a buggy half-finished state just to meet a deadline. Also the statement that was released says that everyone involved are ‘proud’ to be working on such a project. So the delay is going to bring a better game from a group of people who are passionate and in love with the idea of the game they’re creating. This can only be a good thing all round.

We should be seeing more footage of The Division now at E3 this year, so we should get some information about how much work has been completed since the event last week and possibly be able to estimate how close to being finished the game is and therefore maybe which quarter of 2015 we could see the game being released. Until then though, we just have to wait.

The beauty of indie games are that the studios are small, creative and as long as they can make it work as a game, they are free to program and serve up to us any number of weird, wonderful and crazy ideas for sale to the gaming public. That’s how games like ‘Glorious Leader!’ get born.
 
Made by the people at Moneyhorse Games, the game is a 7-level retro-style side-scroller in which you play as Kim Jong Un in an epic adventure in which you fight off the entire American army while either on foot or riding a magical unicorn. If you have a friend to come play with you, the second player can be Dennis Rodman. Seriously.
 
There’s a trailer up on Youtube now and the game will be out for PC, mobile and tablet soon. Can’t wait to see the let’s play videos for this one.
 

Electronic Arts have released a companion app to popular game Titanfall today. Being offered on both Android and iOS, the app is free and gives you full-time access to information and stats about your character among other things.

It is used to check up on your character and their standing in leaderboards across the world through a full-size map that is said to be interactable. The app also contains lore for the universe Titanfall is set in and will allow players to be up-to-date on all the updates and news for the game, including new maps, weapons, information on playable classes and maps and one would assume brief details on which bugs were the latest to be fixed.

Titanfall received its first downloadable pack of content this month and is one of the four games currently being included in EA’s Origin sale. It seems like they’re really promoting the game to try and catch the customers who couldn’t buy it in the release sale wave of gamers.

Recently 3D Realms and Interceptor have been in the gaming press owing to the dispute around the ownership of Duke Nukem rights, more specifically if they had the rights to make a new one without the approval of the people who owned the rights: Gearbox.

Now though they’ve announced a new game, which sounds very similar to their previously announced but so far unreleased Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction. It’s an action, role-playing game, top down and takes place across many planets to save the President from an alien threat. The only difference? The Duke is nowhere to be seen.

The new game, titled Bombshell, stars a new female protagonist called Shelly ‘Bombshell’ Harrison who appears to be a cyborg and is introduced to us through the trailer linked below. It would appear that due to the lawsuit brought against 3DR and Interceptor by Gearbox, they’ve decided to take Mass Destruction and re-work it into the new game, which is still planned to be released on the same platforms of PC and PS4, although not until some time in 2015.

Interceptor and 3DR have promised that the game will contain “out-of-this-world enemies, a never-before-seen arsenal of devastating weaponry and a variety genre-crossing mechanics” and it can be guessed that the extra time will give them some time to tweak the graphics and sound to make them better than the Duke’s postponed game could have. It can also be guessed that the drama that surrounded them owing to the question of who owned the Duke can only work for them as far as promoting the game goes.

It may seem hard to believe, but as of tomorrow (15th May 2014), Diablo 3 will be two years old. Cake and singing songs just isn’t in the style of the popular dungeon-based Hack-and-Slasher, however. Nor is a single day of celebration enough. No, Blizzard has something better in mind.

To celebrate the game’s second anniversary and the community that made it all possible, Starting tomorrow and running until May 22, players who log in to defend Sanctuary will receive double Rift Fragments as well as a +100% boost to their chance to find Legendary items.

While the buffs will apply to all characters; and will stack with other buffs a Player may have to add further bonuses to their drop rate etc, those with a console version of the game are unfortunately excluded – this event is for PC & Mac only. However, as Console releases already have better drop rates than the PC equivalent, this is hardly a big loss. What MIGHT be a big loss is the timing, as many Diablo 3 players are complaining the week-long event falls into a period where many students are completing major exams – thus limiting the time they have to take advantage. However, the most hardcore of Diablo 3 players are already clearing their schedule to make room for a whole week of non-stop action.

Whether you’re a casual or hardcore Diablo 3 player, looks like Diablo’s demons better prepare for a lot more bloodshed than usual.