Dear Brotherhood. As you know, we live in dark times. Our researchers have shown that the midgets are now becoming organised and operating with insect-like instincts and a hive-mind mentality. They are somehow able to bend and refract light and, like all creatures bereft of a soul, do not show up on infra-red at all. I fear that soon all we know will be lost and our world will become their world. When there is no more room in our sheds, the midgety will walk the Earth.

Oh! Hi, readers. I was just um… erm… Quick! Look! It turns out that GAME aren’t quite dead yet after all. Their signs are real low but they ain’t dead. Your local shopping centre may have lost an emporium or two though, so you’ll just have to resort to getting everything cheaper, and less sticker-fucked, online. The Royal Bank of Scotland (purveyors of bumwad from the Bank of Toytown) or some other fiscal pricks are taking them over though, so fans of paying twenty quid for the second or third latest flavour of Call of Duty drivel will soon be able to drag themselves back out there, presumably wearing Crocs or something.

Hilariously, Tesco have decided to stifle GAME’s recovery by proclaiming themselves the “home of gaming” and that they have the “largest number of gaming stores in the UK” while announcing several price drops on recent big-name titles. They are twats, but they are hilarious twats when they want to be. Every little helps etc etc. I tried buying a game in Tesco once. It didn’t end well.

Whatever happens next, GAME still won’t be stocking Mass Effect 3 (unless you count pre-owned copies for £37, presumably) and I’ve still not played it (saving it for the drought) but I am all too aware that the ending is… lacking. I don’t know how or why, but apparently BioWare are bowing to pressure (read: bleating) and planning some DLC that will add ‘clarity’ to the trilogy’s ending. Bleat and thou shalt receive. Publishers are a famously twitchy breed though, and won’t like the criticism so I’m betting that they’ll want to get us all back by charging 800M$P for it at least. Just to be sure.

Strauss Zelnick (apparently a real person and not someone cheating at Scrabble), the CEO of Take-Two (publishers of GTA and Bioshock) has predicted that THQ won’t be around six months from now. The company has indeed been subject to some cost-saving measures such as ditching the uDraw peripheral, cancelling Darksiders 2 (which is great because Darksiders, no matter how much you’ve been told differently, is utter dogshit) and scaling down a planned Warhammer title from an MMO to a regular title. So I guess none of this is a surprise. THQ have ceased to be particularly interesting for a while now, although their UFC games are mostly pretty good. Mostly.

Something’s going on with Kinect Star Wars. I can’t be bothered finding out what, though. I think it’s down to it being a bit rubbish or something and it might have dancing in it. News flash: Star Wars was never that good. Find your own news on that one. It’s not like Kinect actually has anything to do with gaming anyway.

Fans of MASSIVELY MIXED MESSAGES will enjoy the ‘news’ leaks regarding the Wii U. Just this week we’ve heard that the graphics are sub-PS3/360 quality. We’ve also heard they are PS4/720 (ugh!) quality. We’ve also heard that the games ‘look just as good as the PS3′ but that the AI and physics aren’t as capable. We’ve also heard heard that it will be the first console that can truly run MMOs. Seriously, that’s all been reported in the gaming news sources this week. I’m reading it right, man.

My mum always told me there are no monsters, no real ones, but there are. EA (global gaming abomination and ruiners of gamers’ souls) have two new tricks up their sleeves. First, their usual football tournament tie-in this year will forego the usual illusion of being a new game and will be DLC for FIFA 12. It will add kits, stadiums and assorted European Championship flavoured modes and will cost 1800M$P. Sigh.

More disappointing than that, they are helping to destroy the online experience of gaming chav-magnet Battlefield 3 with the ‘Ultimate Shortcut’ DLC that gives you all 119 weapons, gadgets and vehicle upgrades instantly. That content (you know, content that is already in the game) will cost £27.50 and will be lapped up by lazy, feckless fans of ‘winning at any cost’ as they find any way of fucking each other over for their goddamned kill/death percentages. Either way, fuck ‘em. You couldn’t pay me to play that shit.

Not to be outdone, the once-excellent-now-just-annoying Capcom have been caught out when ‘hackers’ found twelve hidden Street Fighter X Tekken characters buried in the game disc (suggesting they would later emerge as DLC). Capcom responded with this bollocks:

“While Capcom is sorry that some of its fans are not happy about the chosen method of delivery for the DLC, we believe that this method will provide more flexible and efficient gameplay throughout the game’s lifecycle.”

“There is effectively no distinction between the DLC being locked behind the disc and available for unlocking at a later date, or being available through a full download at a later date, other than delivery mechanism.”

Capcom? Cockgob mer like. Then again, I’d be more worried that SFxT is now the sixth game to use that Street Fighter IV engine. Seriously, it’s like exactly the same game each time with just the characters switched around and messed with a bit. Capcom need to get good again. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t happily gobble them off for a good Resident Evil 6. It won’t mean we’re engaged or anything.

With that in mind, Resident Evil 6 (which will be awesome by the way) has been brought forward and will now be dropping in October so as not to get lost in the pre-Christmas-release rush of November. Surely that’s like Barcelona switching to a flat back four to counter the attacking threat of Emile Heskey. If I was a publisher I’d (kill myself) be trying not to clash with the mighty Resi. Well, it looks like our favourite zombie mangling series is now going to go up against this year’s FIFA and PES titles instead which is a safer bet. Even if Kenny Dalglish looks more like a zombie than most of the denizens of Raccoon City. Hrmm hrmmm! All we need is a deck of cards to pass the time.

Pete Hines of Bethesda has hinted at new content for the hopelessly bug-riddled snow-’em-up, Skyrim. Knowing Bethesda, it’ll be the first of roughly fifty expansion packs for the game before they release Skyrim: New Windhelm or something. Sorry, Pete, but Amalur’s the new champion of RPGs now. Still, Skyrim has its fans so hopefully they’ll enjoy whatever DLC comes out next. At least until the Diablo series returns in May to leave RPG looting fans caked in some sort of secreted resin.

Fans of chart-based data will love this next bit. It’s er… some chart-based data in short, controlled bursts. Here’s what UK gamers have been buying from whatever game shops are still actually open.

1. Kinect Star Wars (Microsoft)
   LOLerific Star Wars bollocks. Do that many people really own a Kinect? Fuck.
2. FIFA Street (EA)
   Bullshit football action aimed at people that believe that the world’s top players meet up occasionally to have a kickabout like in the Nike adverts. These things are always shit and work on the assumption that players like Ronaldo actually give their tricks names like ‘the flippy-flappy’ or whatever.
3. Mass Effect 3 (EA)
   Not bad considering you couldn’t even buy the fucking thing anywhere.
4. FIFA 12 (EA)
   Now available at the cock-attracting price of £40 on Games on Demand. FIFA can literally fuck off for getting all the cool people hacked because of their money-grabbing Ultimate Team mode. Cocksnagglers.
5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 (EA)
   I thought everyone hated this guy now? And even if they don’t isn’t a bit shit at golf these days? Also, surely they nailed down the golf game formula back in 2001 or something. Well, actually PGA Golf on the Amiga is still the best golf game. Three clicks, Baby. Hole in one!
6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision)
   Stop buying shit. Cunts.
7. SSX (EA)
   Little known fact: there hasn’t been a good snowboarding game since Cool Boarders 2. That was the first good one too.
8. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Sega)
   Lost for derogatory words.
9. Battlefield 3 (EA)
   Beddingfield 3 mer like.
10. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda)
    Not as good as Amalur.

Right, that’s enough of that. I’m getting back to some immense gamerscore whoring while playing the full-price-but-budget-quality Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters. It’s not very good (and the Xbox insists on calling it JASF which leads to people asking me if I’m playing Jet Set Radio: Future for some reason) but the points are legit and I’m just dying to find out who Jane is. Adiós, muchachos

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