This Week In Gaming – March 11th to 17th 2013

Once again, here is a summary of the week’s gaming news – we give up our playing time so you don’t have to…

Announcements

Deep Silver announced details of Saints Row 4 on Friday, with the Third Street Saints having made it to the White House before being trapped in a simulation of Steelport by invading aliens. As one of THQ’s assets, the Saints Row developers Volition were acquired by Koch Media, owners of Deep Silver who will publish the titles from now on. And clearly the change in ownership hasn’t led to any toning down of the series over-the-top chaos, with the announcement trailer including everything from Tron-style cycles to inflating policemen.

After years of encouraging us to cull zombie hordes, Capcom revived a more personal view of the undead last week – albeit shortly before they try to beat you unconscious – with the release of Darkstalkers Resurrection on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. As a pack containing two one-on-one fighters, Darkstalkers 3 and Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge, Capcom have taken a leaf from their own book by including improved online matchmaking settings, ala Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition. Darkstalkers Resurrection is available for 1,200 points on Xbox, or UK£11.99/US$14.99 on PlayStation Network.

Darkstalkers Resurrection (from the Night Warriors game)

Rebellion and 505 Games have announced Sniper Elite 3, the next game in the series about an… erm, elite sniper working his way through World War 2 one X-ray cam headshot at a time. Rebellion’s CEO Jason Kingsley indicated the general direction of the game, saying “We want to focus on making this latest incarnation of Sniper Elite more of a sandbox game but also build on the awesome X-Ray Kill Cam and the atmospheric World War II setting.” Sniper Elite 3 is planned for a 2014 release.

20 years after Duke Nukem 2 was released, Duke Nukem 2 is due to be released! This time coming to an iOS device near you, this trip back in time returns Duke to his platforming roots, pre-development hell or debates over content – and all in bright 256 colours, just like it used to be. The conversion, by Interceptor Entertainment, is due out in April.

And talking of two decade old titles, those Giana Sisters are back (again) next week on the Xbox and PlayStation 3. Having come a long way since the original title was pulled from the shelves for being a fairly blatent Mario Bros imitation, the Gianas have had several – more original – adventures since, including last year’s Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams on the PC. The Xbox version is due to be on Xbox Live on the 20th March, while the PlayStation version is slightly more enigmatically following “a few days later”.

If too many dungeon grinds seem dry, grim and bloody, it appears that developers Cyanide have you covered – their 2009 team-based title Dungeon Party has been re-released on Steam. Setting up 5vs5 teams to storm a dungeon and steal the treasure chest away from the opposition, the game does aim for a party that is more “party game” than “party group”, with traps, enemies, and random effects thrown into the mix. Available now for free, the game does have a cash shop allowing features such as extra playable classes to be bought.

Dungeon Party

Patches and Updates

Sleeping Dogs received an update during the week, Year Of The Snake – perhaps a few days late for Chinese New Year. Continuing the plot from the original Sleeping Dogs, it follows Wei Shen as he tries to reintegrate himself into the police department after his undercover work, while a doomsday cult – the Cult of the Snake – bring destruction to the streets of Hong Kong. Sleeping Dogs: Year Of The Snake is available on Xbox Live for 560 points, and PlayStation Network for UK£4.39/US$6.99.

Capcom and Valve have thrown a curve-ball into each others titles – Resident Evil 6 x Left 4 Dead 2 is due to bring elements of each game into the other from April 5th onwards. While only for the PC versions, the survivors of Left 4 Dead 2 will be playable in Resident Evil 6‘s Mercenaries game-mode – along with two of Left 4 Dead 2‘s special infected; while some of Resident Evil 6‘s creatures will be joining the mobs in Left 4 Dead 2. Both game additions are planned to be free.

Indie

Another week, and another bundle; Stack Social are offering the Name Your Own Price Bundle, featuring six games (summarised in this video) all available for Mac as well as for PC (three of them are also available in Linux versions too, if that is more your thing). 10% of the proceeds are promised to go to a charity – allowing a choice between Child’s Play, the World Wildlife Fund or Creative Commons (though how much may go to the developers isn’t clarified). The bundle is available until March 31st.

The life of a hamster may seem to be an easy one – spend some time in a wheel, or eat yourself silly – but it turns out there are also occasions of navigating dangerous mazes while being threatened by evil cats. Hamster Chase by Gamieon recreates these dangers, and is now updated to version 1.3, most notably adding the option of creating your own mazes to share with other players. Hamster Chase is available for both iOS and Android devices.

Cold, hard numbers

Wargaming, developer of the World of Tanks MMO, announced that they set a new world record for the most players concurrently on one server. Specifically, on January 21st one of the games Russian servers had 190,541 players logged in, out of a Russian playerbase of around 850,000. This is now official recorded as “Guinness World Record for Most Players Online Simultaneously on One MMO Server”, making the second time World of Tanks has set this record.

World of Tanks

And while we’re talking numbers, Grinding Gear Games – developers of Path of Exile – announced that there are now 2 million player accounts registered for the title. While being quite an explosion in numbers for a game only going into open beta at the end of January, the announcement didn’t make clear if all of those accounts were also being actively played regularly. However, the Diablo-esque action-RPG (which we’ve taken a look at before) has been getting a generally positive reaction ahead of its planned September release.