As cited by MCVPacific, NPD has declared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 the biggest-selling game in 2011. Activision's first-person shooter is followed by Bethesda’s role-playing game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Wellington-based developer Sidhe also garnered substantial local support, claiming fifth place overall for All Blacks Rugby Challenge.

The NPD Group’s data does not include sales from the online retail of physical and digital games. According to recently published Digital New Zealand survey, 24 percent of Kiwi gamers buy games new from a download store, and 14 percent buy boxed games new from an online store.

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Double Fine seeks US$400,000 for the project, $300,000 for development, and $100,000 to create a “warts-and-all” behind-the-scenes documentary on the game’s production.

“Big games cost big money,” reads the Kickstarter page for the project currently called Double Fine Adventure. “To finance the production, promotion, and distribution of these massive undertakings, companies like Double Fine have to rely on external sources like publishers, investment firms, or loans. And while they fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether. Thankfully, viable alternatives have emerged and gained momentum in recent years.”

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It's not always the case that game developers are prepared to be upfront and honest about their work, particularly when it's under development.

Many may have raised a sceptical eye last year when Reckoning's Sean Bean offered the suggestion that the combat would be the "single biggest thing" players would take away from this new IP. But as it turns out, he was entirely correct.

That's not to say there aren't additional worthy aspects of Reckoning that beg further investigation. The story, penned by R.A. Salvatore of The DemonWars Saga fame, keeps pace ably with the voiceless protagonist, twisting a tale of corruption, invasion and the endless struggle of good versus evil in a land where not everything is as it seems. Which, when factoring in the use of initials in the author's name, pretty much covers everything necessary for a fantasy saga.

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It’s the kind of town where you dig your own grave prior to being shot in the head and left for dead…and that’s before things really get ugly. It’s a town of dreamers and desperados being torn apart by warring factions vying for complete control of this desert oasis. It’s a place where the right kind of person with the right kind of weaponry can really make a name for themselves, and make more than an enemy or two along the way.

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The data was compiled by market research company NPD Group and has captured close to 100 percent of New Zealand’s offline computer and videogame retail data for the first time.

The data does not include sales from the online retail of physical and digital games, online game subscriptions, in-game microtransactions and mobile game downloads.

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Developed by United Front Studios, True Crime: Hong Kong was to be published by Activision, but was dropped at the same time the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises were indefinitely suspended. Square Enix will release the rebranded game in the latter half of 2012 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

An open-world crime drama, players control undercover cop Wei Shen as he tries to take down the Hong Kong Triads from within.

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Other than a less oxymoronic title the Final Fantasy series has never wanted for much. Following the series’ inception in 1987 the game has had a large following that only grew with its introduction to the west in 1990. Since those early days, the series has branched into genres beyond the Japanese role-playing game to include tactical role-playing, action role-playing, fighting and massively-multiplayer-online role-playing – to say nothing of licensed extensions into movies and anime.

With a wealth of enjoyable games under their belt and a franchise that had kept abreast of gaming innovation, it was once with baited breath that fans awaited the first instalment of the series on the latest consoles. When Final Fantasy XIII launched in 2010 it was met with a lukewarm response from critics and fans alike; frequently panned as a 40-hour corridor that led to cut scenes played out by an lacklustre cast, many where surprised when the announcement came that XIII would be receiving a direct sequel.

The decision to create such a sequel is uncommon for the series. Beyond recurring plot elements, themes, character names and mechanics, the series usually recounts a different series of events with each outing. But Final Fantasy XIII-2 has also been considered an attempt to make amends for the shortcomings of its predecessor. As such, many hoped that this sequel would take what positives there were in XIII and expand on them while continuing to evolve what was once a much-admired series.

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Double Fine’s Tim Schafer has frequently insisted he’s interested in creating a sequel to Psychonauts – most recently on Rock, Paper, Shotgun – but has so far been unable to secure publisher backing.

Yesterday, Notch tweeted Schafer, saying, “Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen.”

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Windows Vista or Windows 7, 4GB of RAM, and a DirectX 9.0c compatible AMD or NVIDIA graphics card with 1GB of RAM will be required to run the high res texture pack.

Skyrim was the Gameplanet Players’ Choice Game of the Year for 2011. In his 9.5/10 review, Dan Cheer called the epic title “the best RPG experience available right now.”

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Capcom is prepared to acknowledge that Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will have a polarising effect on fans of the series. It's about to cast off the shackles of the genre it helped to popularise and instead fully embrace the third-person shooting it has trended towards in recent years.

Far from an irrevocable change of course however, Capcom suggests that SOCOM developer Slant 6’s output should be considered in isolation. Resident Evil: Revelations for 3DS is available now, and Capcom has just announced Resident Evil 6. Due in November, it’s to be a traditional instalment that the publisher is reported to be investing in more heavily than any other product on its busy slate.

The Resident Evil series is also in some ways a victim of its own success. As demand for games in the series has remained steady, the requirement to expand the literature and find new stories has resulted in a convoluted fiction. A fast paced cooperative shooter, Operation Raccoon City takes players back to the heady heydays of Resident Evils 2 and 3, and offers a new perspective on those events by recounting the actions of a villainous Umbrella Security Services squad tasked with covering up the corporation’s involvement in the outbreak of the T-Virus.

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Sony’s abysmal financial report announced the company had lost another NZ$2.5 billion in the quarter, marking the fourth straight year of loses. Hirai told the Wall Street Journal that turning the company’s fortunes around would be the biggest challenge of his career.

“I thought turning around the PlayStation business was going to be the toughest challenge of my career, but I guess not.

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Initially scheduled for release this winter, the game has now slipped to “Q4 2012”, running from October to December. In a brief statement made to Eurogamer, the publisher said, “We did not reveal exact release date so far but our target was for some time and still is Q4 2012 (instead of early plans of late summer that was announced initially). However, we are prepared to give development additional time if it will need it to ensure as good experience as possible. As soon as we have more specific release dates and plans we are going to communicate it clearly.

It added: “Right now we are also finalising release plans for Carrier Command: Gaea Mission which we definitely want to release prior [to] Arma 3.”

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According to its latest quarterly financial report, released yesterday, Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium Online is scheduled for launch in “fiscal 2014 and beyond.” Also scheduled is its collaboration with director Guillermo Del Toro, Homefront 2, a shooter from Turtle Rock, a game led by Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Désilets, and four more unannounced core titles.

On the back of uDraw’s poor performance, THQ posted a loss of US $55.9 million this quarter, compared to $14.9 million this time last year.

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Beginning February 7, the online components of Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell Conviction and The Settlers on the Macintosh platform will be temporarily unavailable. Likewise, H.A.W.X. 2, Might & Magic: Heroes VI, and The Settlers 7 on PC will be similarly disrupted. Offline play is not affected.

In addition, all Ubisoft websites will be impacted with the exception of the Ubisoft official forums and Ubisoft Consumer Service facilities.

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It’s hard to know exactly who the intended audience of doublesix’s latest twin-stick light-RPG shooter All Zombies Must Die! is supposed to be.

On one hand, a decent amount of admittedly cartoonish blood and an M rating suggest teenagers ought to be the ones wielding the controller. However, cutesy animation, simple, repetitive play and the weakest attempt at dialogue and story this side of a Barney episode should see most teenagers re-gifting this one to younger siblings faster than they can say “Super-dee-duper!”

Not that Zombies is really terrible enough to warrant being mentioned in the same paragraph as that annoying purple twit. There are plenty of zombies to re-kill – enough that staying put for too long will see them construct a deadly wall of groaning, grabby flesh around the player – and the dispatching of said zombies is fleetingly satisfying. Unfortunately, everything the game does adequately has been done elsewhere, and Zombies suffers terribly by comparison.

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The Kinect sensors and accessories can be purchased directly online, and feature a one-year warranty and access to ongoing software updates.

The Kinect for Windows sensor offers speech and audio capabilities with the latest Microsoft Speech components, the ability to support up to four Kinect devices on a single PC, "near mode" which sees objects as close as 400 millimetres in front of the sensor, and improved skeletal tracking.

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A NeoGaf reader has identified an apparent 10% cost disrepency between boxed and digital games for the Vita at US retailer Best Buy, prompting a Sony US representative to state: "I can confirm that there will be a discount on the downloadable PS Vita titles from PSN. Exact details have not yet been revealed, but be on the lookout for an announcement in the very near future." (via. Shacknews.)

We've asked Sony Computer Entertainment NZ to confirm if this applies to our region, and will update this article when we get a reply.

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The company has until July 23 2012 to increase its share value above the USD $1 threshold for a minimum of 10 consecutive days, otherwise Nasdaq could be forced to de-list the faltering company.

THQ, founded in 1989, controls publishing rights for such franchises as Saints Row, Warhammer 40K, Red Faction, Darksiders, UFC and many others.

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Over the weekend, 999 gamers were split into two factions for the two-hour battle, easily outpacing Planetside's existing record of 600.

Each gamer paid USD $29 to participate, with many being turned away once the player limit had been reached. Despite a relatively lag-free experience, it appears balancing issues hampered gameplay during the tournament.

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There isn’t a cooler or more ‘80s concept for a TV show than Voltron, wherein a bunch of heavily armed robot lions fly about in outer space before connecting together to form a massive robot man in order to defeat the big bad.

This giant robot even has a kick-ass name, and is PC in a United Colours of Benneton kind of way, even if its crew are far too Caucasian.

It’s a little surprising, then, that in a world where no fewer than four My Little Pony games exist, Behaviour Interactive’s Voltron: Defender of the Universe is the first non-iPhone Voltron game ever made. Thankfully, it fires up all the right nostalgia neurons, and its appeal will be inter-generational thanks to Voltron’s 2010 TV revival and timeless coolness.

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EverQuest producer Thom Terrazas has blogged on the official site: "Anyone who wishes to start, return or continue to play one of the 'Best Games of All-Time' can simply download and play EverQuest on their terms – think of it as Free to Play, Your Way.

"The game will now be setup to be flexible so that *you* can decide how much to pay, based on how much fun you're having."

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Aspiring game studios take note: Russian ultra-nationalists are the new Islamic terrorists – who were themselves once the new Russian ultra-nationalists. The international showdown between a swaggering fundamentalist Christian and a sociopathic fundamentalist Muslim is over, and now America can get down to squabbling over how best to settle the machismo-heavy bill. It’s passé to fax in a combat zone analogous to Iraq or Afghanistan – this is gaming under the Obama administration.

But in the great American fiction, there must always be a “Them” for “Us” to overcome, and without a credible new threat, Tom Clancy’s old whipping boys are vogue once more.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier takes place in the near future and involves a clichéd Russian para-military faction who seeks to overthrow the Federation and re-establish the nation’s superpower status. It’s up to the Ghosts, a super-secret squad of American military clichés, to save us all.

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The packaging spells the game’s name “Resident Evil: Revelaitons” down the spine.

The game is due out in the US on the 7th of February, meaning it's unlikely Capcom will be able to correct the mistake before release.

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The App, currently in beta, allows users to chat with friends, browse the latest screenshots, read the Steam newsfeed, and keep abreast of Steam sales.

“The Steam app comes from many direct requests from our customers,” said Valve’s Gabe Newell. “Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale - these are all features customers have requested.”

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The Times report is based on the testimony of “three dozen current or former employees and contractors”, six of which are anonymous Apple executives with direct experience of the company’s supplier responsibility group.

According to both company reports and “advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors,” the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices work excessive overtime and live in crowded dorms. Under-age workers are employed, records are falsified, and hazardous waste is disposed of improperly.

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