The lucky email subscriber, Facebook or Twitter follower will win the handheld with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss on us with free shipping.

As you may already know, PlayStation Vita has already come out in Japan and in February 22, 2012 it will become available in North America and all other non-PAL regions. We would like to celebrate that by giving away one of these handhelds with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss, which is exclusive to the PS Vita and will bring to use its rear and front touch features. As you may already know, if you are a subscriber to twistedJunk.com, you are automatically entered no matter where you are.

How to enter

As a gratitude to our gaming community here at twistedJunk.com, this giveaway applies to all subscribers new and old that follow us either via Twitter, Facebook or are email subscribers. For those that are new to twistedJunk.com and would like to enter, below are links to our official Twitter & Facebook pages and under that a form where you can enter your email and subscribe to receive updates via email.

Option #1
Enter to win by liking us on Facebook

Option #2
Follow us on Twitter for a chance to win

Option #3

Enter your email address in the box below and subscribe to receive daily updates from twistedJunk.com. Be sure to confirm your email as that enters you into the contest.

Contest rules

No purchases are necessary. As explained earlier, to qualify for this giveaway, if you are new to twistedjunk.com, you could either become a new subscriber by email, follow twistedjunk.com on Twitter or like twistedjunk.com on Facebook. If you already follow twistedjunk.com, you are automatically entered into the contest.

Winners will be announced February 22, 2012. Enter today!

The best of luck!

According to our sources, the upcoming Nintendo Wii U will be getting a new name and will become available around this holiday season. The current name “Wii U” will confuse a lot of people out there that are not gamers and are planing to buy the console to a loved one. To avoid disappointments and help with sales, the folks over at Nintendo are going to rename it. This reminds me of Kinect and the Playstation Vita when they were first announced. Back then these devices had different names and eventually it was announced that their names would change.

As of now take this as a rumor, but as always keep checking with us as more details come our way.

According to Kotaku sources it seems like the future XBOX might come with Blu-ray support. This would make XBOX catch up with the PlayStation 3, which uses that disc technology already. In the details it was also revealed that the next console will probably have a technology that will not let you play used games. Let’s hope that Microsoft think twice about this idea, because it will hurt them in the end if they do this. It was also revealed that this new XBOX 720 or whatever their going to call it; is going to have a new and smaller controller.

Be sure to check with us as more details come.

[Kotaku]

The lucky email subscriber, Facebook or Twitter follower will win the handheld with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss on us with free shipping.

As you may already know, PlayStation Vita has already come out in Japan and in February 22, 2012 it will become available in North America and all other non-PAL regions. We would like to celebrate that by giving away one of these handhelds with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss, which is exclusive to the PS Vita and will bring to use its rear and front touch features. As you may already know, if you are a subscriber to twistedJunk.com, you are automatically entered no matter where you are.

How to enter

As a gratitude to our gaming community here at twistedJunk.com, this giveaway applies to all subscribers new and old that follow us either via Twitter, Facebook or are email subscribers. For those that are new to twistedJunk.com and would like to enter, below are links to our official Twitter & Facebook pages and under that a form where you can enter your email and subscribe to receive updates via email.

Option #1
Enter to win by liking us on Facebook

Option #2
Follow us on Twitter for a chance to win

Option #3

Enter your email address in the box below and subscribe to receive daily updates from twistedJunk.com. Be sure to confirm your email as that enters you into the contest.

Contest rules

No purchases are necessary. As explained earlier, to qualify for this giveaway, if you are new to twistedjunk.com, you could either become a new subscriber by email, follow twistedjunk.com on Twitter or like twistedjunk.com on Facebook. If you already follow twistedjunk.com, you are automatically entered into the contest.

Winners will be announced February 22, 2012. Enter today!

The best of luck!

We will be giving away a Sony Playstation Vita handheld with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss, which is exclusive to the handheld. Below are the contest details for those who do not know yet about it. Enter to win before the time is over as we will be selecting a winner on February 22, 2012.

The lucky email subscriber, Facebook or Twitter follower will win the handheld with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss on us with free shipping.

As you may already know, PlayStation Vita has already come out in Japan and in February 22, 2012 it will become available in North America and all other non-PAL regions. We would like to celebrate that by giving away one of these handhelds with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss, which is exclusive to the PS Vita and will bring to use its rear and front touch features. As you may already know, if you are a subscriber to twistedJunk.com, you are automatically entered no matter where you are.

How to enter

As a gratitude to our gaming community here at twistedJunk.com, this giveaway applies to all subscribers new and old that follow us either via Twitter, Facebook or are email subscribers. For those that are new to twistedJunk.com and would like to enter, below are links to our official Twitter & Facebook pages and under that a form where you can enter your email and subscribe to receive updates via email.

Option #1
Enter to win by liking us on Facebook

Option #2
Follow us on Twitter for a chance to win

Option #3

Enter your email address in the box below and subscribe to receive daily updates from twistedJunk.com. Be sure to confirm your email as that enters you into the contest.

Contest rules

No purchases are necessary. As explained earlier, to qualify for this giveaway, if you are new to twistedjunk.com, you could either become a new subscriber by email, follow twistedjunk.com on Twitter or like twistedjunk.com on Facebook. If you already follow twistedjunk.com, you are automatically entered into the contest.

Winners will be announced February 22, 2012. Enter today!

The best of luck!

Whoa, how about this for a rumor. According to MCV’s “third-party publishing sources,” Microsoft’s next Xbox and Sony’s next PlayStation home consoles will be unveiled at this year’s E3.

As MCV points out, this could be the biggest E3 ever if The Big Three — Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony — decide to show off their next major gaming consoles at the event. That is, however, a big if.

It’s been speculated that the Xbox 720 and PS4 (as some are calling them) won’t be revealed/released at least until 2013. But perhaps Sony and Microsoft don’t want Nintendo hogging all the E3 spotlight this June?

We will be giving away a Sony Playstation Vita handheld with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss, which is exclusive to the handheld. Below are the contest details for those who do not know yet about it. Enter to win before the time is over as we will be selecting a winner on February 22, 2012.

The lucky email subscriber, Facebook or Twitter follower will win the handheld with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss on us with free shipping.

As you may already know, PlayStation Vita has already come out in Japan and in February 22, 2012 it will become available in North America and all other non-PAL regions. We would like to celebrate that by giving away one of these handhelds with a copy of Uncharted Golden Abyss, which is exclusive to the PS Vita and will bring to use its rear and front touch features. As you may already know, if you are a subscriber to twistedJunk.com, you are automatically entered no matter where you are.

How to enter

As a gratitude to our gaming community here at twistedJunk.com, this giveaway applies to all subscribers new and old that follow us either via Twitter, Facebook or are email subscribers. For those that are new to twistedJunk.com and would like to enter, below are links to our official Twitter & Facebook pages and under that a form where you can enter your email and subscribe to receive updates via email.

Option #1
Enter to win by liking us on Facebook

Option #2
Follow us on Twitter for a chance to win

Option #3

Enter your email address in the box below and subscribe to receive daily updates from twistedJunk.com. Be sure to confirm your email as that enters you into the contest.

Contest rules

No purchases are necessary. As explained earlier, to qualify for this giveaway, if you are new to twistedjunk.com, you could either become a new subscriber by email, follow twistedjunk.com on Twitter or like twistedjunk.com on Facebook. If you already follow twistedjunk.com, you are automatically entered into the contest.

Winners will be announced February 22, 2012. Enter today!

The best of luck!

According to a Kotaku source, that awesome Star Wars-themed Xbox 360 that was revealed earlier this year, but then delayed, will be released sometime in April 2012.

As Gizmodo (via Kotaku) previously reported, the console has a R2-D2 design, customized sounds, and a sexy, shiny golden C-3PO-style controller. You can check it out in the screenshot above, courtesy of Kotaku, who notes that the console is currently “being used on the set of a popular network television show.”

Star Wars Xbox 360 Spotted on TV Set, Rumored April Release [Kotaku]

If you like videogames, do not read this review. Do yourself a favor and go  buy this game right now!
That is the bottom line for this amazing game. For those of you who would like to know more, continue reading.

Arkham City is the best superhero game ever created.  You are in Batman’s playground. Anything and everything you could of hoped for to be in a Batman game is here. Batman has many gadgets at his disposal and makes traversing the city a joy.  Arkham City is an open world game that, in terms of game mechanics, plays out more like Zelda than GTA.  Arkham City is a hub world where each villain’s location is similar to a dungeon.  The storyline feels like it was taken straight from a comic book, which is good and bad.  I wanted the story element to be on par with the Dark Knight movie, but what we have here is still worthy of a good Batman story.  Almost all the classic villain’s play some form of role in this game.  I don’t want to give to much away, but I was surprised a lot.

Batman getting his groove on

Gameplay
Controlling Batman is a breeze and feels just right. Seeing as how I’ve never played Arkham Asylum, their was a slight learning curve.  After some time with the game, I wouldn’t want Batman to control any other way. Arkham City boosts the best combat system I have seen, and I don’t say that lightly.  Two buttons are mainly used; one for attack and one for countering.  You can string combos together for more experience points and all in all it looks awesome. Batman’s gadgets can also be used during a brawl, but I didn’t find them too useful.  As you fight and do side quests you’ll get enough experience to level up.  This will bring up a menu and you choose what you want to level up; Batman’s gadgetry, combat, and bat suit.

Batman is also equipped with a detective vision.  This allows you to see enemies through walls with detailed information on them.  It also helps you solve crimes by showing you bullet and blood trails.  It will also show you a bosses weak spot and give you clues for riddler trophies, basically its used a lot.  This was a problem in the Arkham Asylum because you could literally play the whole game with detective  vision turned on.  Arkham City rectifies this by automatically turning it off when entering a new area and by not allowing you to see your next objective with it turned on.

Early on, Batman can dispatch foes with ease and I was worried that the game was going to be too easy, but this is not the case, as the difficulty will ramp up pretty quickly.  Thugs will start carrying guns, shields, knives, electrified batons, and more.  Each weapon requires a different strategy.Let me paint you a picture: You come to a room inside a specific enemies lair, you turn on detective vision and notice their are 8 armed thugs patrolling the area. 4 have machine guns and thermal vision, 2 have shields, and 2 have electrified batons. You want to get to a good vantage point so you grapple to a stone gargoyle statue You have all of Batman’s gadgetry  , and you can get to any spot in this room with ease.  How do you take out every thug without alerting the other enemies around? This is why this game is so good.  You can approach a situation the way you want.  Do you drop a smoke bomb and take on everyone at once? You better be good at combat because Batman can only take a few bullets.  Do you drop proximity freeze mines? Disable an enemies weapon with the disruptor? – watch them try to use their gun and panic when it doesn’t work, this is always good for a laugh, or you could stealthily go around the room taking them out one at a time. The list is endless. This brings me to another point that i didn’t really expect, the enemy AI is good and all but what really drew me into the experience was the way the enemies react to batman.  You can smell their fear as they slowly creep around corners after finding an unconsious body from a nearby attack.  They question where Batman is because they swear that they saw him, and even in detective mode you can see what mental state they’re in.  Some enemies will taunt Batman and tell him he’s too scared to come face them, they will yell and tell other thugs to help look for him. It just feels like one big interactive experience.

The Riddler trophies are back and they are everywhere.  I don’t care for collecting specific items in open world games, it usually feels like a cheap excuse to extend the replay value, but here it’s great. Rocksteady actual took the time to make collecting the trophies creative and enjoyable and when you collect enough of them it starts opening up hostage rescue sequences reminisant of the Saw movies.  This leads me to the side missions. Their are a lot of them and they’re not just throw away either. The side missions are fully fleshed out mini stories that involve major characters. I don’t want to spoil too much, but one side mission involves you chasing ringing pay phones around the city. Another side mission invoves you seeking out and destroying titan containers. Catwoman also plays an interesting role. I would definitely recommend downloading the catwoman dlc before you start the story mode , as it lets you play out important story elements.  These little intermissions offer a nice change of pace from the rest of the story.  They don’t last very long and they’re not at all obtrusive, although, each time  you switch to Catwoman your left on a cliff hanger, and sometimes I would rather see what happens next.  Catwoman gets around the city with her whip and climbing ability and it doesn’t feel as intuitive as Batmans Grapple.  Nevertheless, its still highly operational and you can see the difference between a rich, highly trained professional and a poor slum dog woman.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Arkham City are excellent.  The city itself is the highlight here.  While not as big as a GTA city, it does its job.  It’s always night, but thats ok, thats what works for this type of game.  The city is highly detailed and every area you move into has character.  Every section of the city is designed specific to that character.  I don’t want to give too much away but ,you’ll know when your entering The Joker’s territory.  One of the best parts about the game is to climb to the top of one of the highest buildings and marvel at how beautiful it looks with all the action going on.  The character models are nearly perfect, you wouldn’t want them to look any different.  Even Batman shows some wear and tear as you progress through the game.  The animation is also great.  Watching Batman pummel 20 thugs is a sight to behold.

The music in the game is good and I seem to really only notice it when the action picks up or when an intense scene is unfolding, otherwise it plays quietly in the background.  The voice acting is on par with most big budget movies.  Mark Hamill is casted as The Joker once again.  He does an excellent job and makes The Joker sound as insane and crazy as he is.  The Penguin seems to have taken on a different accent, but I like the change as it gives him more of an edge. Batman’s voice is accurately depicted and sounds like a mix between the Dark Knight and The Animated Series.  One thing to mention though, their is a lot of chatter. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming, as you’ll here conversations from random thugs, the radio that picks up a lot of chatter, and then the major villains will have dialog over a loud speaker.  This is small though when compared to the big picture, as the production is of very high caliber.

Conclusion

When you’ve finished the main story mode, you unlock New Game Plus, which starts you at the beginning with all your gadgetry. The enemies are also harder and they won’t display the icon over head when they’re going to strike. Also, their are the challenge maps, which will have you choose from Batman or Catwoman your then faced with a room full of thugs and you have to take them out accordingly. Some challenge maps you’ll have to use stealth and others require quick reflexes to take out 20 to 30 enemies.  Arkham City really is one of my favorite games of all time. This game definitely lives up to the hype and then some.  That’s not to say this game is perfect, it does have its faults.  Not all the major villains are as fleshed out as they could be.  In fact, some of them are introduced early on and then forgotten about.  Their is also any overwhelming sense of objectives on your map at all times this can be considered good or bad really. Towards the end of the game their is some backtracking. These are all minor gripes when looking at the whole game. The bottom line is that this game makes you feel like your batman better than any other medium and that is something that has to be seen to be believed.

The launch of Modern Warfare 3

It all started with Call of Duty 4, the first Modern Warfare. This game introduced us to a new breed of multiplayer. It singlehandedly breathed new life in the first person shooter. It was like the answer was right in front of us. Just add an rpg element with visable and useable player progression. Previous Call of duty’s had already nailed the controls (its just something about the connection with the controller and whats happening on screen- it feels so right).  Adding addictive multiplayer and amazing controls, Infinity Ward had the winning formula. To a lot of people the single player was throw-away.  It was like a summer action flick.  It had a decent story, and provided a good distraction – especially if your getting your ass kicked online. At this point people were just realizing the potential of this game.

Modern Warfare 2 was announced and the hype surrounding it was incredible. People were craving any information they could get their hands on. The sales numbers spoke for themselves.  Modern Warfare 2 had the biggest day one sales numbers of any game, selling a record breaking 7 million worldwide.  Everyone was hooked, including myself.  I remember a specific scenario,  justifying my insanity (dedication).  My wife was away at work one time and I was watching our 1 year old (at the time) daughter. She fell asleep in my arms and she would cry if I laid her down. So what did I do. I did what any normal and decent human being would do. I played Modern Warfare 2 while I held her for 2 hours. It was this kind of dedication that I had and I’m sure many others shared.  Modern Warfare 2 upped the ante by adding crazy kill streaks (one that would let you drop a nuke, ending the party), better weapons, a spec ops mode for co-op play, and more.  The fanbase was growing rapidly.  It even brought in new players. Modern Warfare 2 was supported by infinity ward for a long time. Releasing map pack after map pack.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was released 1 year later.  The sales figures were similar to the previous titles, it would go on be the highest grossing videogame ever.  Black Ops was set in the 60′s, during the Cold War.  To me it didn’t really offer anything new, it still had that really addicting multiplayer.  Now we have the next entry in the series: Modern Warfare 3, this game will conclude the story.  Everything has been turned up to 11, unfortunately the single player ends quickly.  I guess thats more reason to jump into the multiplayer cause its better than it ever was.  Not much has really changed, but thats a good thing.  What has changed though are all really good ideas that make sense.  Killstreaks are now known as pointstreaks.  These points are distrubted into strike packages which are divided up into 3 groups: Assault, specialist, and support.  The rewards for the support package don’t reset when the player dies, which is nice for those of us that don’t play 25 hours a day.

Modern Warfare is one of the reasons videogaming is more mainstream than it ever was. People will tell you that they don’t play video games, just Modern Warfare. Even celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube proclaim that they play it. I know I answered my own question here about why gamers are so obsessed with the call of duty franchise. In fact I may be one of them.  The addictive multiplayer, the rollercoaster single player, the amazing and accurate controls, the list goes on. Let’s just hope they don’t lose steam releasing this game annually. Which is a whole other story.