Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - the one what did multiplayer - arrives next week, and Ubisoft is banging its drums by discounting AC2 downloadable content.

Battle of Forli and Bonfire of the Vanities have been squashed to £2 apiece, and the Secret Locations-plus-Bonfire of the Vanities double-pack costs just over three quid.

New games on the European PlayStation Store this week are Crescent Pale Mist and side-scrolling shmup bundle Söldner-X 2: Final Prototype & The Last Chapter, according to the European PlayStation blog.

Other things you may like: the Morpheus skin for God of War III - no not the one from The Matrix - and Bon Jovi songs for Rock Band 3.

Things you may not like: paying £32 for the PSP version of WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2011.

Special Offers (available until 24th November)

TMNT: Turtle in Time Re-Shelled (was £7.99/€9.99 now £5.49/€6.99)
Cell Factor: Psychokinetic Wars (was £7.99/€9.99 now £5.49/€6.99)
Assassin's Creed II: Sequence 12 Battle of Forli (was £3.19/€3.99 now £1.99/€2.49)
Assassin's Creed II: Sequence 13 Bonfire of the Vanities (was £3.19/€3.99 now £1.99/€2.49)
Assassin's Creed II: Sequence 13 Bonfire of the Vanities & Secret Locations (was £5.49/€6.99 now £3.19/€3.99)
PSP: Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (was £23.99/€29.99 now £15.99/€19.99)
PSP: Tom Clancy's EndWar (was £15.99/€19.99 now £7.99/€9.99)
PSP: ChessMaster: The Art of Learning (was £15.99/€19.99 now £7.99/€9.99)
Mini: Mystery of the Crystal Portal (was £3.99/€4.99 now £2.49/€2.99)
Permanent: Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley (now £19.99/€24.99)
PS3 Games

Crescent Pale Mist (£3.99/€4.99)
Söldner-X 2: Final Prototype & The Last Chapter Bundle (£11.99/€14.99)
PS3 Game Content

EyePet: Dinosaur Styling Pack (£2.39/€2.99), Hoodie Styling Pack (£2.39/€2.99)
Front Mission: Evolved - Weapons Pack 02 (£2.39/€2.99)
God of War III Morpheus Character Skin (£0.79/€0.99)
Hustle Kings - Carom and UK Billiards Pack (£1.59/€1.99)
Just Cause 2 Chaos Parachute (free)
ModNation Racers: Ratchet & Clank Pack (£1.39/€1.75), Stunt Pack (free)
My Aquarium Big Fish Set (£0.79/€0.99)
PAIN Maxine Pack (£0.79/€0.99)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock 1 Track Pack (£13.99/€17.99), "Red Barchetta" by Rush (£1.59/€1.99), "Tom Sawyer" by Rush (£1.59/€1.99)
Rock Band 3: Bon Jovi Greatest Hits: Rock Band Edition (£9.99/€14.99)
Rock Band Network: "A Drug Against War" by KMFDM (£0.99/€1.49), "Blood Red Rock" by Bang Camaro (£0.59/€0.79), "Dethroned' by Death Angel (£0.99/€1.49), "Scavengers Of The Damned" by Aiden (£0.99/€1.49), "You Ain't No Family" by iwrestledabearonce (£0.99/€1.49)
PSP Games

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 (£31.99/€39.99)
NBA 2K11 (£23.99/€29.99)
Street Cricket Champions (£6.99)
PSOne Games

Grandia (£6.29/€7.99)
Minis

3, 2, 1... Supercrash! (£2.39/€2.99) Rating: PEGI 3
Fort Commander II: Counterattack (£3.49/€3.99) Rating: PEGI 7
Jewel Keepers: Easter Island (£3.99/€4.99) Rating: PEGI 3

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...eed-ii-add-ons ...

Microsoft's motion sensor Kinect is "incredibly liberating" for women.

That's according to Belinda Parmar of ladygeek.com, who was interviewed as part of a piece on Channel 4 News to coincide with the launch of the Xbox 360 add-on.

"For women, that's incredibly liberating," she said. "Why it's important that it appeals to women is women control the living room. There's a real battle going on for the living room. Women are the gatekeepers of that. They decide what's coming in, what's coming out."

Microsoft hopes Kinect, which enables controller-free gaming, will broaden the appeal of the Xbox 360 as well as extend the life of the console.

"The key thing is it's something for everybody - Kinect appeals to all different types of people, casual and core gamers," Stephen McGill, head of the UK Xbox business, told Eurogamer in an interview published today.

"We announced some core games at Tokyo Game Show and we'll be showing more of them in the months ahead, but I think the games we've got for Kinect for launch and through Christmas will surprise people. Core gamers may not have expected some of these games to be as appealing as I know they're going to find them."

"Microsoft Kinect, this is a great opportunity to get inside the living room," Parmar added. "Traditionally consoles have been relegated to the bedroom or the attic or the boy's den."

Tell us about your boy's den, readers.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ting-for-women ...

Nickelodeon Fit has arrived in the US, giving kids the chance to leap around with the likes of Dora the Explorer.
The title, from 2K Play and Nickelodeon, features 30 games developed in collaboration with physical education and expert science expert Dr Jacqueline Goodway PhD. Activities use either the Wii Remote or the Wii Balance Board and include trampolining with Dora, skateboarding with Diego, running with Kai-lan and jumping rope with The Backyardigans.
"We know from research that in their early years, children learn the exercise patterns that will carry over to their adult lives," said Dr Goodway. "We hope that regular participation with Nickelodeon Fit will empower children to start on the road to an active and healthy lifestyle."

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41745/2K-P...s-fitness-game ...

Forget the Red Ring of Death, spilt drinks are the most common cause of console damage, according to insurance firm Protect Your Bubble.
Targeting gamers during the biggest release week of the year so far, the online broker highlights the arrival of Black Ops and Kinect, but warns that technology can go wrong – and that all it takes is a rogue drink to ruin the fun.
According to the specialist online gadget insurer, a quarter of all games console claims (24 per cent) are for spilt drinks.
"Consoles are no longer just for solitary gamers," are the wise words from Protectyourbubble.com's director Stephen Ebbett. "Families and groups of friends getting together for a karaoke contest on SingStar or a competitive game of tennis on Wii Sport in the living room with food and drink nearby ups the risk of spillages.
"Unfortunately, electrics and liquids just don't mix," he added, sagely.

The insurer's top five common games console claims are:-
Software problems (33 per cent)
Spilt drink (24 per cent)
Hardware failure (16 per cent)
Red Ring of Death (14 per cent)
Game stuck in machine (five per cent)

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41742/Dont...insurance-firm ...

Voice chat and wardrobe management is just the start of what's to come to Home tomorrow when client version 1.4 goes live.

Sony's put out the full list of changes and it's a long one. Home users will, as of tomorrow, be able to set up groups of up to eight people, send invites to other players no matter what they're playing/watching on their PS3, send private text messages, set their character status and a whole lot more.

Here's the full list:

NEW FEATURES

Groups

* You can now create groups in Home.
* Groups consist of up to 8 different people.
* You may invite your friends and anyone in the same space as you to your group.
* Groups work no matter where anyone is in Home - different public spaces, personal spaces or club houses.
* Groups have their own voice and text chat channels that work between all group members wherever they are in Home.
* If you leave Home then you leave your group.
* If the leader leaves a group then leadership is automatically transferred to another member of the group.
* The chat log has two tabs "Text" and "Voice". The text tab handles all text chat while the voice tab handles all voice chat.
* Communication in the chat log has been separated into multiple chat channels.

The Chat Log

Local: The existing proximity based text chat in a space.

Group: Text and voice chat through the group channel. Works between all group members anywhere in Home.

Club: Text and voice chat through the club channel. Works between all club members anywhere in Home.

- You can only be in one club channel at a time.
- If you are in multiple clubs then you can switch the channel between each one.

* Each channel has its own prefix and colour scheme so that you can tell them apart in the chat log and understand where chat is coming from.
* As part of this change we have removed the display of custom pop-up colours from the chat log.
* The label on each tab is coloured and prefixed according to the channel you will send chat to if you type or speak.

Text

* Complementing the telephone call system you can now send private text messages to other people through the chat log as well.

Voice

* The voice tab lists all of the people in your current voice channel along with a status icon which indicates:

-Speaking
-Has microphone
-Does not have microphone
-Blocked, ignored or muted

* In addition to the standard menu options there are special slash commands for switching channel or sending private messages quickly:

- "/local" or "/l"
- /l hello
- "/group" or "/g
- /g howdy"
- "/club" or "/c"
- /c greetings
- "/privatemessage", "/private" or "/pm"
- In the case of a private message you also need to specify who the message will go to.
- /pm how are you?

Wardrobe

* We have replaced the old wardrobe background that was tied to the Harbor Studio apartment with a simpler, more neutral one that loads more quickly.
* You can now tag "favourite" items in the wardrobe.
* It is possible to filter the wardrobe view to only display favourite items, purchased items, rewards or recently acquired items.
* Each category in the wardrobe can have the items in it sorted by time acquired and when it was last used.
* New items will have a new icon on them (as will categories that contain new items).
* There is a storage section into which you can put items that you don't use very often. Putting some of your items into storage will mean:

- The wardrobe loads faster (and depending on how much is being stored Home may load faster as well).
- There will be fewer items to scroll through in each category.

* You can browse your storage section and swap items back into your main wardrobe whenever you want to.

- You can keep a maximum of 500 items in your main wardrobe at any one time. The rest go into storage.
- When you load Home for the first time after the patch we will automatically put some of your items into the storage trunk if you happen to have more than 500 items already.

* There is a new "Both Ears" category in the wardrobe.
* The "Glasses" and "Headphones" categories have been replaced with "Face Accessory" and "Head Accessory".
* Within each category the first option will keep your current selection.
* Your character can now be set into one of several different statuses:

Character Status

- Normal
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Confused
- Busy
- Wants help
- Wants to chat
- Wants to play

* Setting a status will update the information in your character label and in some cases may change the expression on your character's face and your idle animations.
* We have added a simplified carousel of three main options (Navigator, Wardrobe and Settings) to the first page of the Menu Pad.

IMPROVEMENTS

Menu Pad and the Navigator

- All of the existing menus can be found under "Settings" now.
- The carousel view can be turned off in the settings if you wish.

* The Navigator can be accessed directly in Home by pressing and holding [START] without having to go through the Menu Pad.
* Extra icons have been added to the side of each space in the Navigator to indicate if this space is a favourite and whether it has any friends in it.
* There are extra options in the Menu Pad and Home Safe Screen for setting preferences as to how much of the new character labels you ...

Nintendo has filed a trademark request for the phrase 'It's on like Donkey Kong' with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The pop-culture saying has been around for decades and was popularised by rapper Ice Cube in the song 'Now I gotta Wet'cha'.


But Nintendo's only just jumped into action, weeks ahead of the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns for Wii.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

xoeo has hacked his way back onto PlayStation Network (PSN). The modified payload for 3.15 and 3.41, re-enables PSN access…for now. The hex files can be flashed to the PS3YES or any other device equipped with the AT90USB162 at 16MHz and AT90USB1287 at 8MHz. Other builds will follow when people start to compile it for their boards or to help others.

Be careful though, Sony will likely be all over this and will be fixing it quickly. However, they may even detect that you’re using a hacked PS3 which puts you at risk of getting banned.

Download files and source can be found in source link.

Source: A9VG (Chinese) ...

xoeo has hacked his way back onto PlayStation Network (PSN). The modified payload for 3.15 and 3.41, re-enables PSN access…for now. The hex files can be flashed to the PS3YES or any other device equipped with the AT90USB162 at 16MHz and AT90USB1287 at 8MHz. Other builds will follow when people start to compile it for their boards or to help others.

Be careful though, Sony will likely be all over this and will be fixing it quickly. However, they may even detect that you’re using a hacked PS3 which puts you at risk of getting banned.

Download files and source can be found in source link.

Source: A9VG (Chinese) ...

Development staff at Warner Bros’ new Montreal outfit are said to be angered at management’s decision to shift the studio’s focus to social and mobile games.
Warner Bros needs to grow its Montreal workforce to 300 employees by 2015 – a strategy first conceived for triple-A production.
Yet Warner Bros Montreal’s existing 26 employees are, according to Canadian newspaper Lapressaffaires, being told to work on bite-sized mobile/social games and a microtransaction-based MMO.
“Some staff were surprised by the change in philosophy, sometimes to the point of leaving the company,” the paper alleged.
The studio’s general manager Martin Carrier said the focus is a response to a games market in flux; with the social and mobile spaces offering lucrative alternatives to triple-A production.

"Before, we perceived the [social/mobile] market as a secondary market, but today is a growing market with the democratization of video games. Commercially, we believe we can sell more than games on a grand scale," Carrier told the paper.
Local politicians have invested a $7.5 million grant, as well as various tax credits, in the studio.
Projects underway and in place at Warner Bros Montreal will draw from DC Comics-related IP.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...-social-switch ...