Seems that even before Halo 5 gets released, 343 Studios are already planning for the next game in the series. They’re advertising for a ‘senior producer’ for a new game, as well as for a senior concept artist to “breathe a fresh vision into a new Halo experience”.

The listing doesn’t confirm much and so little is known of the game other than it being another in the long-running Halo franchise, but rumours are that it will be a spin-off separate from the afore-mentioned Halo 5 or The Master Chief Collection which is also on its way.

If it is a spin-off it wouldn’t be the first Halo spin-off to have emerged. Past titles have included Halo ODST and the popular Halo Reach as well as RTS Halo Wars and twin-stick shooter Spartan Assault.

Gamers of the 90s especially will remember the Oddworld games, especially the first two which followed the unlikely hero Abe. Gory, rude and violent as well as dealing with questions of commercialism and the power of wealth vs nature and spiritualism, the Oddworld games were not exactly child-friendly. You might also remember that the Abe games were the first in an installment of a group of planned games called the ‘Oddworld Quintology’, yet as of 2014, we’ve only seen the first two parts (Abe and Munch). Now creator Lorne Lanning has released a few more details about the third installment called Squeek’s Oddysee.

The protagonist of the game, Squeek, would have been a brand-new half-animal, half-robot creature who had had some of his body parts replaced by machinery by researchers much in the same vein as how both Abe and Munch were previously mistreated by corporate interests before going on their own journeys.

“The idea was that the Vykkers, who were animal researchers that would kill a million bunnies just to make a better fabric softener, had been making robotic life support devices because so they could repossess people’s body parts like how you’d get evicted. They’d stick what was left of you in this clunky robotic form and tossed you out on the street.”

Squeek’s Oddysee was originally thought to be coming shortly after the release of Munch’s Oddysee onto the Xbox in 2001, but has been hanging in uncertainty for years after interest levels in the game were not supposedly as high as had been anticipated. Instead other games were released and a remastered version of Abe’s Oddysee called “New n Tasty” is due to be released soon on the PS4.

As a gamer who enjoyed both Abe games and Munch’s Oddysee during her teenage years (frustrating as it could be sometimes, finding the secret parts of a level was just so satisfying) I personally would love to see the third installment of the Quintology released soon, and I’m not just saying that because Squeek is for all purposes technically a cyborg too. I genuinely enjoyed my time playing previous games in the Quintology. Here’s hoping that the game will actually see release for all long-time Oddworld fans to enjoy.

Hearthstone’s singleplayer adventure expansion, Curse of Naxxramas, is being targeted for a July release a post on the Blizzard forums has confirmed.

In the post the Blizzard Community Manager said that they are hoping to get the expansion out during the month of July, but said that there was still a lot of bug-testing and implementing to get done before they could release it. He also said that the pricing information was to be released on the first day of that month.

A Hearthstone Adventure, Curse of Naxxramas, is to be a single-player campaign that adds an Adventure mode to the free-to-play card game, set within its own gameboard. It is set in the ancient necropolis Naxxramas, the base of operations for the powerful lich Kel’Thuzad and his plague-bearing undead host. It will be rolled out over 5 weeks, with the first part The Arachnid Quarter being free for all Hearthstone players while the other four will be purchasable with either in-game gold or real money for those wanting to continue through.

It will be released at the same time on PC, Mac and iPad.

Rebellion have been forced to revoke access to their new game Snipe Elite 3 for a number of Steam users after it emerged that the keys they purchased might have been stolen.

The developers have said that it appears one of the PC retail distributors who had acquired a set of keys for sale noticed that a number of them had been stolen and it is thought that the keys were then sold on to a number of third-party retail websites, with none of the money going to Valve or the original distributors of the keys. Valve have now been notified and revoked access to the game for all of the ‘stolen’ keys.

“We have been saddened to learn that some fans have been caught out by companies selling unlicensed or stolen Sniper Elite 3 Steam keys,” Rebellion posted in an update on Steam to inform of the events, urging all those who had been affected to seek refunds from the place they purchased their key. They have stressed however that they don’t wish to discourage anyone from buying from any legitimate third-party seller of keys, acknowledging that it isn’t the fault of the retailers who couldn’t have known the keys had been taken illegally.

Although a full list of the third-party retailers thought to have unwittingly purchased the stolen keys for further sale has yet to be published, some such as CDKeys.com are already actively refunding all the customers caught out while others have removed the keys from sale on their websites.

Rebellion are also making their pre-order bonus, ‘Target Hitler’, available to all those affected provided they e-mail sniperelite3keys@rebellion.co.uk by July 4^th with proof of purchase and a record of the original Steam key they purchased.

The Sims has been with us now for what seems like forever. There’s been 3 main titles and plenty of DLCs to support the growth of the game’s community and some features of the simulator that allows you to build a life for your Sims that you can only dream of are pretty much a game standard by now. So much so that you’d imagine there couldn’t possibly be a Sims game without them.

Seems swimming pools aren’t one of those things though. At least, according to Maxis and EA.



The news that the new Sims 4 game will not include the swimming pools that are a long-stayed feature of the game has met with some understandable ire from the community on Reddit. Sims Team producer Ryan Vaughan tried to cool the fury by reminding them that many new features to better allow you to customise the houses you build.

“While we recognize that some of you will be disappointed…You should know that we’re building an incredibly strong foundation that is capable of fulfilling every one of your desires in the years to come” he wrote.

The Sims 4 game will include a new ‘fountain’ tool to help create landscapes along with wall height adjustment, dynamic foundation sizing and something called Smart Windows. It’s hoped by the team that these will make up for the removal of things such as the swimming pools and also the toddler stage of a Sim’s life-cycle. The game will be released on September 2nd.