Me io

If all the talk of Halo Anniversary has put you in the mood for more modern fare, the Reach map packs are down to five bucks each this week. Alternately, if the release of Dead Rising 2: Off the Record gave you a hankerin' for Dead Rising 2 spinoffs, you'll find those half off next week, starting October 25. Dead Rising the first will also be On Demand for 25% off.

There's currently a "Shocktober" sale happening, including Castlevania Harmony of Despair for 600 Points ($7.50), and Alan Wake On Demand for just $10 more than retail. What a deal.

Racing fans can get a rolling staaaaaaaaaaaaaaart on Daytona USA on October 26, and check out the Toy Soldiers: Cold War "Napalm Pack" and A World of Keflings DLC on the same day. And in Avatar accessory news, it's finally happening on October 20.

Source: Major Nelson

CyberConnect2 has movie-making experience from working on a CG .hack movie, and it's that experience -- including motion capture expertise -- that drew Namco Bandai to the developer for Soulcalibur V. "I was approached by Namco almost two years ago," CEO and Naruto cosplayer Hiroshi Matsuyama told Gamasutra. "I knew they were working on Soulcalibur V, and they asked for help in the visual side of the game. The fighting gameplay was handled by their own team, and they just needed help in the visuals of the game, because they wanted to add more to the dramatization of the game."

CyberConnect 2 did storyboarding and motion capture for the fighter. Matsuyama said that the motions have a CC2 look. "The actions look a little like in Naruto, in the sense that the motion doesn't look like we used motion-capture," he said. "In that sense, I think the game looks like it's been done by us."

Matsuyama also said that Epic is surprised by CC2's use of Unreal Engine 3 for Asura's Wrath. He said it's "difficult" to make a cinematic action game in an engine designed primarily for shooters, but there's something like that for every engine. "I think the tools don't matter," he said. "And, a perfect engine doesn't exist. There's always something that's difficult to do with every tool."

Source: Gamasutra

Valve loves itself so much that it puts its own games into other studios' work on Steam -- we don't want to call it incestuous, but, well. It's kind of incestuous. Dungeon Defenders is the latest victim game to have a healthy Valve infusion, with pre-orders getting The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device for the Huntress class and four Team Fortress 2 familiars, Heavy, Medic, Engineer and Pyro. Check out how these goodies work above and pre-order Dungeon Defenders on Steam, if you're into that sort of thing.

Source: Steam

EA is offering four big mobile titles for free for all the tens of people who own Sony's Xperia Play: Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Need for Speed: Shift and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The offer runs through Jan. 15, 2012, meaning you still have time to throw the PlayStation Phone on your holiday wish list and snag these suckers for free. If it helps, think of it as getting four games with a handy smartphone case thrown in for free.

Source: Sony Ericsson

Capcom has never been one to shy away from aggressively utilizing its core intellectual properties, however iteration often translates to evolution, which can be interpreted as abandonment by the minds of die-hard fans. But, that might not be such a bad thing.

"We think that certainly some people's expectations will be violated, but that's, in our minds, a good thing," said producer Masachika Kawata, speaking on the Resident Evil series during an interview with Gamasutra. "It will hopefully get people to play something that they weren't expecting."

Resident Evil has arguably seen more drastic paradigm shifts than any other Capcom franchise, with the upcoming Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City fully embracing the shooter seeds planted by Resident Evils 4 and 5. Kawata views the situation as one of diversity rather than exclusion, however, implying that the Resident Evil franchise has expanded to accommodate many different genres underneath its IP umbrella, including shooters.

Of course, survival horror is still an integral part of Resident Evil's brand image, and Kawata's own Resident Evil: Revelations is said to be "core-fan focused" in a way that makes it similar to Capcom zombie romps of yore. Still, every relationship needs a little spark now and again: "I'm thinking that if we would have brought out all these Resident Evil titles, and they were all focused on survival horror, absolutely I think people would be really sick of Resident Evil."

Source: Gamasutra

Firemint already showed off Wii U-esque iPad-to-Apple TV streaming play of Real Racing 2. Now, along with the announcement of the iPhone 4S and the impending release of iOS 5, it's updated that capability to allow for up to four players to stream to an HDTV using AirPlay.

One player, the "host," needs an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S, according to Pocket Gamer; the other players can use any device that runs the game. That just leaves the question of why, if every player has their own screen, they'd want to go through the trouble to play in split-screen. The answer to that, of course, is because they can.

The update will also boost graphical output for 4S and iPad 2 devices, and it'll be out alongside iOS 5.

Source: Firemint

Namco Bandai is relaunching its "ClubNamco" online store with an exclusive Tekken Hybrid bundle. The $249.99 set, limited to 1,000 units, contains the Tekken Hybrid limited edition, along with an exclusive Namco-branded Mad Catz Tournament Edition S FightStick, which might be the most understated arcade stick we've seen. Pre-orders open today in advance of the game's official release date is November 22.

While the real purpose of the stick is to play Tekken Tag Tournament HD and the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue included in Hybrid, the PS3-exclusive release also includes Tekken: Blood Vengeance, making that the first movie we can think of to have an official arcade stick.

Source: ClubNamco

If you're snagging Battlefield 3 from Amazon, you'll net some extra goodies, the online retailer has revealed. Everyone who pre-orders will gain not only the Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand DLC -- which includes four different maps from Battlefield 2 updated in Frostbite 2.0 and several of the game's "weapons, vehicles and unique rewards" -- but also some exclusive dog tags for the game's multiplayer side.

Already pre-ordered? Don't sweat it, Amazon is extending this offer to those who've already pre-ordered the game -- that is, unless you've canceled your pre-order after checking out the beta.

Source: Amazon

It goes without saying that you shouldn't do bad stuff, but what if you technically don't know you're doing something bad? That's the potential situation with the Battlefield 3 beta right now on PC, which has apparently been hacked to allow for up to 128 players on the Operation Metro map. But here's the thing: these hacked matches show up in the regular Battlelog, so players could potentially stumble in and not realize they're doing something wrong.

Regardless, EA wants you to know that doing so will put your Origin account in danger and potentially limit your access to all of the games you downloaded through EA's digital distribution platform to none. The above exchange, which allegedly went down in the EA forums last week, has since been pulled.

We've contacted EA for an official statement on the matter and will update this post accordingly.

Source: Reddit

One of the universal truths of the fighting-game world is that at all times, someone out there is better than you, no exceptions. It's a sure thing, so much so that this cosmic natural law even applies to games that aren't even out yet, as is evident by the SoulCalibur 5 Astaroth v. Ivy match video above.

It's nice to know that even though the bright, cheerful announcer we've come to know and love has been replaced by a gruff, melancholy fellow, matches are still followed by confusing and non-sequitur one-liners about justice and victory. Slide past the break for a few more videos showcasing the new fighters and reworked mechanics. Welcome back to the Stage of History; now eat it!

Source: GnouzCorp

We don't take kindly to publishers making us into liars here at Joystiq, so you can imagine how we feel about Dead Island dev Techland announcing a delay in the release of its upcoming Bloodbath Arena DLC after originally pinning a "late September" window on it. Spittin' mad, you might say. As it turns out, rather than Bloodbath Arena ... erm ... flowing to the game by the end of this month (that's today) as originally planned, it's been moved to an undetermined date.

Techland tries weaseling out of responsibility for its blatant disrespect of our Serious Journalistic Integrity™ by blaming, "Further polishing of the main game," as the reason for said delay. "We know that fans are eagerly waiting for it and apologise for any inconvenience," the post additionally notes, taunting us further. Apparently a "release update" will come next week, but after all we've been through this morning, who can we even trust anymore?!

Via: Eurogamer