Blizzard Sued over Battle.net Authentication

Blizzard is being sued over the Battle.net authentication used in multiple games including Diablo III. A class action suit led by plaintiff Benjamin Bell is seeking damages for "consumer fraud, unjust enrichment, negligence, breach of contract and bailment," claiming that Blizzard is "deceptively and unfairly" charging some users to secure their data from hackers.

Bell is specifically referring to Blizzard’s $6.50 keychain authenticators, alleging that Blizzard has made $26 million by selling them. The suit accuses Blizzard of unfairly requiring users to use Battle.net and says the company has continued to “negligently, deliberately, and/or recklessly fail to ensure that adequate, reasonable procedures safeguard the private information stored on this website.” Bell points to multiple hacking incidents -- including May’s Diablo III hacks -- as evidence that Blizzard failed to take "the legally required steps to alert" players.

Bell is seeking damages and an injunction to bar Blizzard from “tacking on” costs after games have already been purchased. He also seeks to stop Blizzard from requiring players to sign up for a Battle.net account.

We reached out to Blizzard about the suit and a spokesperson sent IGN the following statement:

"This suit is without merit and filled with patently false information, and we will vigorously defend ourselves through the appropriate legal channels.

We want to reiterate that we take the security of our players’ data very seriously, and we’re fully committed to defending our network infrastructure. We also recognize that the cyber-threat landscape is always evolving, and we’re constantly working to track the latest developments and make improvements to our defenses.

The suit’s claim that we didn’t properly notify players regarding the August 2012 security breach is not true. Not only did Blizzard act quickly to provide information to the public about the situation, we explained the actions we were taking and let players know how the incident affected them, including the fact that no names, credit card numbers, or other sensitive financial information was disclosed. You can read our letter to players and a comprehensive FAQ related to the situation on our website.

The suit also claims that the Battle.net Authenticator is required in order to maintain a minimal level of security on the player’s Battle.net account information that’s stored on Blizzard’s network systems. This claim is also completely untrue and apparently based on a misunderstanding of the Authenticator’s purpose. The Battle.net Authenticator is an optional tool that players can use to further protect their Battle.net accounts in the event that their login credentials are compromised outside of Blizzard’s network infrastructure. Available as a physical device or as a free app for iOS or Android devices, it offers players an added level of security against account-theft attempts that stem from sources such as phishing attacks, viruses packaged with seemingly harmless file downloads, and websites embedded with malicious code.

When a player attaches an Authenticator to his or her account, it means that logging in to Battle.net will require the use of a random code generated by the Authenticator in addition to the player’s login credentials. This helps our systems identify when it’s actually the player who is logging in and not someone who might have stolen the player’s credentials by means of one of the external theft measures mentioned above, or as a result of the player using the same account name and password on another website or service that was compromised. Considering that players are ultimately responsible for securing their own computers, and that the extra step required by the Authenticator is an added inconvenience during the log in process, we ultimately leave it up to the players to decide whether they want to add an Authenticator to their account. However, we always strongly encourage it, and we try to make it as easy as possible to do.

Many players have voiced strong approval for our security-related efforts. Blizzard deeply appreciates the outpouring of support it has received from its players related to the frivolous claims in this particular suit."

Source: Courthouse News

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Fringe: A Key Component Revealed

Hey, Fringe fanatics, ready to have your mind blown again?

After the last two tragic, game-changing episodes, it looks like Walter, Peter and Olivia are ready to take the battle to The Observers like never before.  On this Friday's episode, "Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There," a new tape is discovered, sending Walter out on his own to search for answers.  A few weeks back, I visited the set of Fringe in Vancouver and talked to stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble about this particular episode, which they were in the middle of shooting.

"Essentially, we're fighting Observers today," Torv said with a grin, also telling me that a ton of the episode takes place inside one particular building. "We've been in this, like, green hallway for days, and we've been doing it in parts too." 

Jackson -- who, at the time, had to keep quiet about the big change Peter went through in last week's episode -- was able to elaborate a little more on the whole "green hallway" aspect of the shoot.  "We are in the midst of the device that gets introduced in episode 1, about the tapes," he said.  "So that becomes the motivational device - plot device - of every episode mostly this season. That is the direct consequence of one of the pieces of Walter’s plan that he’s hidden. And it takes us into this hallway. He’s hidden a key component that, actually, I think will probably be for all the serious Fringe-heads the coolest reveal of the episode - What it is that’s in there."

Look, if Jackson's even geeking out about this fun reveal, then you know it's going to rock.  "This is one of those things you don’t want to tease too much, because maybe everyone will be like, 'meh,' Jackson shrugged. "The thing that we reveal in the episode that we’re shooting right now - if you geeked out on the mythology of the show - is going to be one of those 'knock-your-socks-off' moments."

Check out these two new clips from Friday's episode...

"We’ve mined our own history well for things going forward," Jackson continued.  "And it’s a smart show that takes things that either weren’t intended or were intended and is sort of engaged by its own mythology, and lets the story spin out of things that we’ve already established. So something that seemed incidental is going to come back to be crucial. And ultimately, it gets one of our characters to his or her natural finishing state in a way that is going to make the original intention -- or that thing that seemed incidental -- seem so f**king cool."

John Noble, whose Walter Bishop has now buried himself in his quest to take down The Observers, talked to me about his path on this particular episode. "In the episode now, I'm sort of going through a few manifestations of just retrieving Walter's lost memories, depending on what memories are coming up at the time," Noble said.  "So, it's an interesting challenge.  His brain is jangled.  Having regained a lot of his skills, now he's had them all shattered again, which creates a problem. Then we have little pieces of it returning at different times, and different manifestations of his character coming back."

"The reason [Walter] had his brain cut out was because he didn't actually like what he was," Noble added, "which was a man of hubris and arrogance. That sort of slips back in every now and again.  Some of the stuff is almost Walternate-like.  Very stern and hard."

"Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There" airs Friday, November 9th at 9/8c on FOX.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and on IGN at mattfowler. No other choice you will ever make will be as easy and render such a great reward.

Source : ign[dot]com

Fringe: A Key Component Revealed

Hey, Fringe fanatics, ready to have your mind blown again?

After the last two tragic, game-changing episodes, it looks like Walter, Peter and Olivia are ready to take the battle to The Observers like never before.  On this Friday's episode, "Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There," a new tape is discovered, sending Walter out on his own to search for answers.  A few weeks back, I visited the set of Fringe in Vancouver and talked to stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble about this particular episode, which they were in the middle of shooting.

"Essentially, we're fighting Observers today," Torv said with a grin, also telling me that a ton of the episode takes place inside one particular building. "We've been in this, like, green hallway for days, and we've been doing it in parts too." 

Jackson -- who, at the time, had to keep quiet about the big change Peter went through in last week's episode -- was able to elaborate a little more on the whole "green hallway" aspect of the shoot.  "We are in the midst of the device that gets introduced in episode 1, about the tapes," he said.  "So that becomes the motivational device - plot device - of every episode mostly this season. That is the direct consequence of one of the pieces of Walter’s plan that he’s hidden. And it takes us into this hallway. He’s hidden a key component that, actually, I think will probably be for all the serious Fringe-heads the coolest reveal of the episode - What it is that’s in there."

Look, if Jackson's even geeking out about this fun reveal, then you know it's going to rock.  "This is one of those things you don’t want to tease too much, because maybe everyone will be like, 'meh,' Jackson shrugged. "The thing that we reveal in the episode that we’re shooting right now - if you geeked out on the mythology of the show - is going to be one of those 'knock-your-socks-off' moments."

Check out these two new clips from Friday's episode...

"We’ve mined our own history well for things going forward," Jackson continued.  "And it’s a smart show that takes things that either weren’t intended or were intended and is sort of engaged by its own mythology, and lets the story spin out of things that we’ve already established. So something that seemed incidental is going to come back to be crucial. And ultimately, it gets one of our characters to his or her natural finishing state in a way that is going to make the original intention -- or that thing that seemed incidental -- seem so f**king cool."

John Noble, whose Walter Bishop has now buried himself in his quest to take down The Observers, talked to me about his path on this particular episode. "In the episode now, I'm sort of going through a few manifestations of just retrieving Walter's lost memories, depending on what memories are coming up at the time," Noble said.  "So, it's an interesting challenge.  His brain is jangled.  Having regained a lot of his skills, now he's had them all shattered again, which creates a problem. Then we have little pieces of it returning at different times, and different manifestations of his character coming back."

"The reason [Walter] had his brain cut out was because he didn't actually like what he was," Noble added, "which was a man of hubris and arrogance. That sort of slips back in every now and again.  Some of the stuff is almost Walternate-like.  Very stern and hard."

"Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There" airs Friday, November 9th at 9/8c on FOX.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and on IGN at mattfowler. No other choice you will ever make will be as easy and render such a great reward.

Source : ign[dot]com

Fringe: A Key Component Revealed

Hey, Fringe fanatics, ready to have your mind blown again?

After the last two tragic, game-changing episodes, it looks like Walter, Peter and Olivia are ready to take the battle to The Observers like never before.  On this Friday's episode, "Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There," a new tape is discovered, sending Walter out on his own to search for answers.  A few weeks back, I visited the set of Fringe in Vancouver and talked to stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble about this particular episode, which they were in the middle of shooting.

"Essentially, we're fighting Observers today," Torv said with a grin, also telling me that a ton of the episode takes place inside one particular building. "We've been in this, like, green hallway for days, and we've been doing it in parts too." 

Jackson -- who, at the time, had to keep quiet about the big change Peter went through in last week's episode -- was able to elaborate a little more on the whole "green hallway" aspect of the shoot.  "We are in the midst of the device that gets introduced in episode 1, about the tapes," he said.  "So that becomes the motivational device - plot device - of every episode mostly this season. That is the direct consequence of one of the pieces of Walter’s plan that he’s hidden. And it takes us into this hallway. He’s hidden a key component that, actually, I think will probably be for all the serious Fringe-heads the coolest reveal of the episode - What it is that’s in there."

Look, if Jackson's even geeking out about this fun reveal, then you know it's going to rock.  "This is one of those things you don’t want to tease too much, because maybe everyone will be like, 'meh,' Jackson shrugged. "The thing that we reveal in the episode that we’re shooting right now - if you geeked out on the mythology of the show - is going to be one of those 'knock-your-socks-off' moments."

Check out these two new clips from Friday's episode...

"We’ve mined our own history well for things going forward," Jackson continued.  "And it’s a smart show that takes things that either weren’t intended or were intended and is sort of engaged by its own mythology, and lets the story spin out of things that we’ve already established. So something that seemed incidental is going to come back to be crucial. And ultimately, it gets one of our characters to his or her natural finishing state in a way that is going to make the original intention -- or that thing that seemed incidental -- seem so f**king cool."

John Noble, whose Walter Bishop has now buried himself in his quest to take down The Observers, talked to me about his path on this particular episode. "In the episode now, I'm sort of going through a few manifestations of just retrieving Walter's lost memories, depending on what memories are coming up at the time," Noble said.  "So, it's an interesting challenge.  His brain is jangled.  Having regained a lot of his skills, now he's had them all shattered again, which creates a problem. Then we have little pieces of it returning at different times, and different manifestations of his character coming back."

"The reason [Walter] had his brain cut out was because he didn't actually like what he was," Noble added, "which was a man of hubris and arrogance. That sort of slips back in every now and again.  Some of the stuff is almost Walternate-like.  Very stern and hard."

"Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There" airs Friday, November 9th at 9/8c on FOX.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and on IGN at mattfowler. No other choice you will ever make will be as easy and render such a great reward.

Source : ign[dot]com

Fringe: A Key Component Revealed

Hey, Fringe fanatics, ready to have your mind blown again?

After the last two tragic, game-changing episodes, it looks like Walter, Peter and Olivia are ready to take the battle to The Observers like never before.  On this Friday's episode, "Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There," a new tape is discovered, sending Walter out on his own to search for answers.  A few weeks back, I visited the set of Fringe in Vancouver and talked to stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble about this particular episode, which they were in the middle of shooting.

"Essentially, we're fighting Observers today," Torv said with a grin, also telling me that a ton of the episode takes place inside one particular building. "We've been in this, like, green hallway for days, and we've been doing it in parts too." 

Jackson was able to elaborate a little more on the whole "green hallway" aspect of the shoot.  "We are in the midst of the device that gets introduced in episode 1, about the tapes," he said.  "So that becomes the motivational device - plot device - of every episode mostly this season. That is the direct consequence of one of the pieces of Walter’s plan that he’s hidden. And it takes us into this hallway. He’s hidden a key component that, actually, I think will probably be for all the serious Fringe-heads the coolest reveal of the episode - What it is that’s in there."

Look, if Jackson's even geeking out about this fun reveal, then you know it's going to rock.  "This is one of those things you don’t want to tease too much, because maybe everyone will be like, 'meh,' Jackson shrugged. "The thing that we reveal in the episode that we’re shooting right now - if you geeked out on the mythology of the show - is going to be one of those 'knock-your-socks-off' moments."

Check out these two new clips from Friday's episode...

"We’ve mined our own history well for things going forward," Jackson continued.  "And it’s a smart show that takes things that either weren’t intended or were intended and is sort of engaged by its own mythology, and sort of lets the story spin out of things that we’ve already established. So something that seemed incidental is going to come back to be crucial. And ultimately, it gets one of our characters to his or her natural finishing state in a way that is going to make the original intention -- or that thing that seemed incidental -- seem so f***ing cool."

John Noble, whose Walter Bishop has now buried himself in his quest to take down The Observers, talked to me about his path on this particular episode. "In the episode now, I'm sort of going through a few manifestations of just retrieving Walter's lost memories, depending on what memories are coming up at the time," Noble said.  "So, it's an interesting challenge.  His brain is jangled.  Having regained a lot of his skills, now he's had them all shattered again, which creates a problem. Then we have little pieces of it returning at different times, and different manifestations of his character coming back."

"The reason [Walter] had his brain cut out was because he didn't actually like what he was," Noble added, "which was a man of hubris and arrogance. That sort of slips back in every now and again.  Some of the stuff is almost Walternate-like.  Very stern and hard."

"Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There" airs Friday, November 9th at 9/8c on FOX.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and on IGN at mattfowler. No other choice you will ever make will be as easy and render such a great reward.

Source : ign[dot]com

Polygon Man: PlayStation All-Stars’ Final Boss

It’s been long rumored that Polygon Man is the final boss in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Today, we can confirm that this is, indeed, the case. In PlayStation All-Stars’ introduction video, seen below (and viewable whenever you turn on the game), you’ll see each of the game’s 10 rivalries culminate with a quick glimpse of Polygon Man himself.

Who is Polygon Man, you ask? In short, he’s the original PlayStation mascot, designed to tease the power of the PlayStation before it launched in the west in 1995. Interestingly, the ad campaign was pulled before the console launched in North America. According to Edge, this reportedly occurred when Sony Computer Entertainment founder and former CEO Ken Kutaragi “went absolutely insane” upon seeing it on Sony’s E3 booth in 1995. In other words, he wasn’t pleased.

But that hasn’t stopped Polygon Man from persisting in the minds of the most hardcore PlayStation faithful, and his inclusion in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale indicates that the team at SuperBot Entertainment has its roots firmly planted in the same soil PlayStation sprouted from nearly two decades ago. But the intro video itself also serves a purpose apart from simply showing off Polygon Man, as SuperBot Entertainment’s Omar Kendall explains.

“We really wanted to play up the concept of rivalries” in All-Stars, Kendall said, the hypothetical “what ifs” of the universe they’ve created where the unlikeliest of characters can face-off against one another. The intro video allows SuperBot Entertainment to do that. With the video’s script and design concocted in-house, SuperBot utilized the skills of Zoic Studios to render and create the intro itself.

But for Kendall, a veteran of the fighting development scene, an intro such as this serves another purpose. “This was another note that we could hit that was very much in line with the overall message that PlayStation All-Stars really is, or at least has roots in traditional fighting games.” He mentions games like Soul Calibur and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as examples of great fighting games with epic intros like the one they’ve attempted to put in their game.

With all 10 of the rivalries shown-off in full, Kendall noted that there were some “fantasy matchups” in there, like Ratchet & Clank versus Jak & Daxter, as well as some “in your face” rivalries, and some more subtle “easter egg” rivalries, like the one between Nathan Drake and Sly Cooper that play off of the fact that both are treasure hunters… or perhaps thieves. He describes the entire scenario as being “big notes” complemented by “subtle cues.”

The rivalries are as follows:

• Ratchet & Clank versus Jak & Daxter
• Sly Cooper versus Nathan Drake
• Fat Princess versus Evil Cole MacGrath
• Sir Daniel Fortesque versus Colonel Radec
• Sackboy versus Big Daddy
• Nariko versus Dante
• Heihachi versus Toro
• Spike versus Parappa the Rapper
• Good Cole MacGrath versus Raiden
• Sweet Tooth versus Kratos

Kendall stressed that the story in All-Stars should be loose and act as an excuse for these characters to come together. But it shouldn’t be construed as canon. He “didn’t want a big, sort of heavy story that was going to feel really arbitrary and cheesy and kind of pull the players out. Because these characters… come from these really rich worlds already, and I knew that this game wasn’t going to serve to paint the sort of official storylines of these individual characters. I knew it was going to be something that they experience together mutually, in some ways exclusively, and then go back to their worlds. You’re really not going to see their experiences in PlayStation All-Stars reflected in God of War IV or God of War V.”

Yet, citing the famous Michael ad (seen below), Kendall admits that “all of these characters live inside this shared space,” later noting that “we thought it would be really cool if we, as opposed to trying really hard to create this fiction and explain why Kratos and Sackboy are in the same world together, just sort of casually acknowledge the fact that this world is living inside of your PlayStation.”

It’s that very notion – the world living inside of your PlayStation – that influenced the team to put Polygon Man in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale as the final boss.

“When we were thinking about a boss for PlayStation All-Stars, we asked ourselves ‘what was the ultimate manifestation of PlayStation?’ And for us, it was Polygon Man. If you could look at some of the original material that Polygon Man appeared in, he makes these crazy statements, these sort of almost nonsensical statements, like ‘power is an illusion’, ‘absolute power is a seamless illusion’. These really weird, grandiose statements. He doesn’t really come off as a bad guy, but he comes off as kind of this representative of power, the power and potential and what PlayStation represents. So we thought it would be really cool if at the center of this shared universe all of these PlayStation characters inhabit was Polygon Man, waiting as the ultimate challenge for this world.”

Kendall went on. “If you look at the rivalry cutscene, it takes place in this kind of blue polygonal space. That, for us, is kind of the PlayStation universe at its base. You’ll see the XMB power waves flying in the background, you’ll see the PlayStation shapes flying around in the background. That’s kind of like the PlayStation landscape stripped bare to its essence… You see that space transition into the purple Polygon Man colors, and for us, Polygon Man is made of the same stuff, I guess, as the essence of the PlayStation universe.”

Believe it or not, however, Polygon Man wasn’t the original idea for the final boss in PlayStation All-Stars. The team at SuperBot came up with many ideas, including ones that took from certain games. An idea floated early on was the Helghan Army from Killzone being the game’s villain. But those sorts of ideas didn’t jive with the idea of what PlayStation All-Stars was all about.

“I think what we realized when we were going through our exploration was that yeah, certainly we could identify a single evil entity from one of our characters’ universes,” Kendall explained. “It could be Zeus (from God of War), it could be Dr. Nefarious (from Ratchet & Clank), it could be any of our sort of standard villains. But we felt that as a game called PlayStation All-Stars, we really wanted the final challenge to not draw from a single, particular IP, but really, we wanted the final challenge to be against the entire PlayStation brand itself. And when we began to think about it that way, Polygon Man really became the obvious choice.”

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com

CBS and Hulu Unite (Kinda)

The weary battle rages on as CBS and Hulu announce a non-exclusive, multi-year licensing agreement to stream certain shows through Hulu's subscription service.

While CBS is still not offering any of its new series for streaming, they are allowing access to more than 2,600 episodes from their library series such as Medium, Numb3rs and CSI: Miami, as well as other classics like Star Trek, I Love Lucy and The Twilight Zone.

The agreement marks another baby step for Hulu and CBS, the only network still not offering new programs on Hulu. The two companies forged a similar deal last year for Japan, granting Hulu Plus members access to some of its older shows.

"CBS has a long history of producing truly great TV. Hulu Plus subscribers are entertainment lovers who spend their time watching shows they love, versus shows they might only just like," said Andy Forssell, Senior VP of Content for Hulu. Those two facts make for a fantastic combination, because this collection of CBS titles are shows that people revere and that really matter to fans of great TV like our subscribers."

CBS content will begin to appear on Hulu Plus in January 2013 and over the following months.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

JLA Movie to Face Off Against Avengers 2?

Now that Warner Bros. has won a decisive court battle involving the rights to Superman, the studio can speed up development on its Justice League movie.

Warner Bros. Wins Big in Superman Copyright Battle

The Man of Steel is, of course, a key member of that superhero team, along with players in spandex like Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and others. According to The LA Times, the studio is expected to "accelerate" development on the JLA project, which will include finding a director and cast. The hope is to shoot next year for a summer, 2015, release. That would put the film squarely against The Avengers 2, don't cha know?

Watch the above video to see Dark Knight co-writer David Goyer discuss bringing Superman's origin story to Man of Steel.

Had Warners lost its legal battle against the family of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster, the use of the character in Justice League or elsewhere would've been restricted after 2013. (And in fact, aspects of that court struggle continue to rage on, though it would seem yesterday's verdict was the start of the litigation saga's endgame.)

"That uncertainty made it difficult for Warner[s] to move ahead with Justice League, which the studio's motion pictures group president, Jeff Robinov, has long wanted to make as a pillar of its big-screen superhero strategy," says The Times. Additionally, the decision reached yesterday allows Warner Bros. to make sequels to Man of Steel (though it remains unclear if that version of Superman will be the one we see in Justice League or not).

So the plan now is to spin-off other heroes into their own movies after Justice League, in a sort of reverse-Marvel methodology. Hey, that works for me.

Talk to Movies Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottIGN, on IGN at scottcollura and on Facebook.

Source : ign[dot]com

NYCC: Soul Sacrifice -- Spells and Specialization

Magic makes the drama of battle much more interesting. Wielding a sword has its own exhilarating charms, but wielding the elements, even the dead, dazzles in a way that wood and iron fail to do. The battles waged in Soul Sacrifice are driven entirely by magic. And you define the magic you sling and summon, which in turn defines you as a sorcerer and your subsequent style of play.

But why is all this magic crackling at your fingertips? As it turns out, you've been imprisoned by a rival sorcerer at the start of Soul Sacrifice. During your imprisonment, you find a strange (talking) journal that once belonged to a powerful spellcaster. You live out this sorcerer's memories in Soul Sacrifice by completing quests, which in turn unleashes new magic into your catalogue and inches you closer to freedom.

Before embarking on a quest you select which spells you bring into battle. These aren't your ordinary, everyday spells, mind you. These are dangerous, unstable, and often grotesque techniques that torment your body and unleash destruction on the creatures that snarl and bark before you. You can distort your hand into a seething hammer, or wield a sword wreathed in fire. Perhaps you'll coat your arm in ice and spew a frigid wind at the opposition, or summon a golem from beneath the dirt to do your bidding.

There are hundreds of spells to unlock as you journey through the dark. And by playing with up to three other friends you are encouraged -- and in some cases required -- to select spells that complement each other. Questing with an aggressive lover of blades? Select supportive magic to heal his wounds or hold his enemies in place while he whittles their flesh away.

With each monster vanquished, a choice must be made: do you save the soul of the defeated, or sacrifice it? Saving souls restores health and graces you with icy light, while sacrificing an enemy enhances your strength and bathes you in a glow as red as blood. These choices alter the appearance of your sorcerer, and purify or twist their physical form over time.

All these choices mold each sorcerer into a different conduit of mystical devastation, including the option to sacrifice your avatar's body to unleash a terrible attack onto enemies of immense power. But once this spell fizzles to a halt, you're forced to wander the battlefield as a ghost while your allies finish the quest alone. You can only heal them or hamper their foes, but you have little direct control over what's left of the battle.

The spells of Soul Sacrifice power its charm and hum with potential. While an English-version build has yet to be shown, the diversity and unique quality of the magic vouch strongly for the whole experience, which will arrive this coming spring.

Ryan Clements writes for IGN and gravitates towards ice magic. It's always so cool. Get it? Cool.

Source : ign[dot]com

PlayStation All-Stars: No More New Characters

Sony has revealed that no more characters will be announced for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale’s launch. In a post on Twitter, PlayStation Blog senior social media specialist Sid Shuman wrote that “We have revealed the full launch lineup of characters,” confirming that All-Stars will ship with 20 fighters.

Keep in mind that All-Stars could easily add additional characters via downloadable content, so this doesn’t necessarily mean the roster will stay at 20 forever. For now, though, at launch you’ll have the following options:

1. Big Daddy
2. Cole MacGrath
3. Evil Cole MacGrath
4. Colonel Radec
5. Dante
6. Fat Princess
7. Heihachi Mishima
8. Jak and Daxter
9. Kratos
10. Nariko
11. Nathan Drake
12. PaRappa the Rapper
13. Raiden
14. Ratchet and Clank
15. Sackboy
16. Sir Daniel Fortesque
17. Sly Cooper
18. Spike
19. Sweet Tooth
20. Toro

Rumors in the past have suggested additional fighters such as Metal Gear Solid’s Snake and Kat from Gravity Rush, though neither has ever been confirmed by Superbot.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale will hit stores on November 20th for PlayStation 3 and Vita, and buying the console version will get you the Vita version for free. For a look at all 20 launch characters in action, check out 30 minutes of expert videos from Superbot’s Seth Killian. For even more, be sure to see our official PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale wiki guide.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Play Kid Icarus: Uprising Online With IGN Tonight

Tonight marks the last time that we'll be heading into the battle arena of Kid Icarus: Uprising's multiplayer and we want you to join us for a few rounds of Free-For-All and Light Vs Dark to send us off in style.

We'll be online between 18:00pm and 20:00pm (BST) this evening on September 27th so if you want to take us on at Kid Icarus on Nintendo 3DS all you need to do is head over to the Facebook event page, add our Friend Codes, post your own Codes on the event wall so we can add you back, and let battle commence!

In the meantime, if you're looking for tips head to IGN's Kid Icarus: Uprising wiki.

Source : ign[dot]com

PlayStation All-Stars: 30 Minutes of Expert Videos

IGN's hunger for new PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale content knows no bounds. We pitch characters for the roster, grab rumors, and have the official PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale wiki. This week we went so far as to nabbing fighting game guru Seth Killian -- a recent "get" for fighting games on PlayStation -- and had him play 13 matches as the game's newest characters. We even had him commentate over the bouts to give you an idea of what character is right for you.

Missing the older characters like Kratos and Sly Cooper? Check out the wiki for their videos, and then get to watching and check out our daily updates all this week on IGN.

MONDAY, 9/17

TUESDAY, 9/18

WEDNESDAY, 9/19

THURSDAY, 9/20

FRIDAY, 9/21

Greg is the executive editor of IGN PlayStation, cohost of Podcast Beyond and host of Up at Noon. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Greg's shenanigans on IGN and Twitter. Beyond!

Source : ign[dot]com

F1 2012 Review

Yearly sports titles tend to face an uphill battle. While the likes of EA’s FIFA and Madden could easily get by on roster changes alone, most other games really need to prove their mettle to get punters to pony up their hard earned cash again. Yet for its third outing with the Formula One license, that’s just what Codemasters have done with F1 2012, delivering numerous small-but-notable improvements over the last two years’ offerings.

Everything starts with the young drivers test in a meticulously recreated Yas Marina Stadium and racetrack in Abu Dhabi. Taking you through everything from vehicle handling, acceleration, and breaking to the more advanced elements of the sports such as KERS and DRS, a mixture of hands on time and short instructional videos prove invaluable to those either unfamiliar with the sport or new to its digital recreations. Depending on your inherent skill, the young drivers test will take about 40 minutes to 1 hour to complete but this solid foundation in gameplay mechanics will prove time well spent. Even returning F1 players should appreciate this refresher course in basic training, as there are plenty of nuanced differences to pick up on that reflect the changes the FIA has introduced to the motorsport since F1 2011 hit shelves.

It’s just one small aspect of the game’s commitment to authenticity. Obviously, a number of recognisable drivers were practically a given – Raikonnen, Button, Hamilton, et al – but appearances by real-world team members, such as Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner and race commentary from former F1 driver Anthony Davidson, helps craft a truly immersive experience. From the training mode onward, F1 2012 does a fantastic job of placing you in the mindset of an up-and-coming driver. Emails from agents and teammates advise you of race specifics or analyse your performance afterwards, helping put your head in the game. The tension, the weight of expectation of your colleagues, almost feels palpable, all creating a determination on your part to improve.

Improvement is something you’ll have to work hard for though, and rarely does a game make you fight so hard for a fraction of a second’s performance on a lap time. The overall difficulty could be placed somewhere between the brutal F1 2011 and the challenging F1 2010 – not easy then. With even minute deviations from the track resulting in time penalties or outright disqualification, learning to control the cars properly will be your number one priority. Given just how specific the game’s demands are though, there’s temptation to become over-reliant on Codemaster’s trademarked Flashback feature; zooming backwards to take one more pass at an awkward hairpin or avoid a collision. As such, it can become difficult to gauge any sense of genuinely improved performance.

Throughout the game, vehicle handling proves simultaneously precise and punishing. Veering onto the grass causes the green stuff to accumulate on your wheels, adding a perceptible slide and minimises traction, while deploying KERS (strip back the complexity of the rules and it’s a horsepower-boosting equivalent to a speed power-up in lesser titles) affects your braking times and accuracy as a side-effect of its eye-watering forward momentum.

Thankfully, with a range of braking assists, traction control and a racing guideline available, F1 2012 remains accessible for newcomers who want something perhaps closer to a typical racing game but still serving as an entry point to the sport. Ramp the difficulty up though, and every turn of the car, every gear change, and even aspects of pit time are your responsibility. That responsibility is even felt prior to races, with your car’s customisations – best tires, engine optimisations, fuel types – largely determining victory before you’ve even hit the tarmac. It’s more to learn and can feel frustrating if you just want to jump into a game, but the results really pay off once you know what you’re doing.

Moving into the main game content, the Proving Grounds area feels closest to an Arcade mode and is likely to be where more casual players spend a lot of their time. Champions Mode offers a selection of six challenges seeing you outwit and out-race some of the biggest names in the sport, and is immediately more accessible than the career or even the quick play modes. The difficulty curve on these is blistering though, and as you put yourself through races spotlighting Formula One’s finest, you'll find yourself having to put every speck of training you've gathered from elsewhere in the game to its utmost use. Proving Grounds is also where you will find the Time attack and Time Trial modes, the former seeing you attempting to set speed records on some of the world’s top racetracks, the latter testing your racing skills against the demands of international race teams.

While these more casual modes allow you free reign to select racing team and cars, the full Career Mode instead sees you racing up the league tables, beginning with a lower tier team before your successes earn you promotion after promotion. Impress the global press and industry observers and you’ll attract contract offers from more prestigious teams, your choices of which to accept affecting progression. It’s a lengthy outing, though the new Season Challenge mode allows a more relaxed approach, still putting you through the paces of a competitive chain of races but proving less of a time demand than your full career.

In addition to expected online multiplayer, split-screen and LAN options make welcome appearances. With no noticeable decline in frame rates or overall visual quality in split screen, the chance for some deliciously tense competition with your real-world mates is one to be relished.

Visually, the improvements in F1 2012 are harder to spot – 2011 already looked amazing. Most notable is a refined weather system, where rain can, and frequently will, sweep across a track during weekend-long events. Storm clouds are visible from a distance, and the look of the track as it gets soaked is perceptible. Best of all, this forces a gameplay change, as you’ll need to switch out tires to continue at optimum efficiency. Racetracks new and old – the main attraction being the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, hosting this year’s US Grand Prix – are authentically modelled, each delivering a unique atmosphere and, as with last year’s entry, there’s a brilliant soundtrack to accompany you.

Essentially, if you enjoyed F1 2011, there’s more than enough here to keep your attention: everything that was great last year returns, with enough tweaks and improvements to warrant a return. Newcomers will find F1 2012 a shock to the system compared to more conventional racing games, but the ample tools provided to get into the sport provide a gratifying experience with just a little bit of commitment on the player’s part.

Source : ign[dot]com

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Dream Roster: Warhawk

Ever since PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was rumored, IGN's been pitching characters that need to be in the game. Well, after the leak, it appears developer SuperBot Entertainment isn't listening. So, IGN's Podcast Beyond is teaming with IGN reader Pandamusk to create videos for the fighters we think need to be in the game.

This week, we're pitching the plane from Warhawk. You read that right... it's Clements' idea.

Who do you think should be in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale? Let us know in the comments below. Plus, check out our past installments...

• Heavy Rain's Ethan Mars
• Crash Bandicoot's Crash Bandicoot
• The Sound Shapes Blob
• Mega Man

Greg is the executive editor of IGN PlayStation, cohost of Podcast Beyond and host of Up at Noon. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Greg's shenanigans on IGN and Twitter. Beyond!

Source : ign[dot]com

See PS All-Stars’ Nariko and Sir Dan in Action

Yesterday, we revealed that Nariko and Sir Daniel were joining the roster of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. And today, Sony has released videos of each character in action. You can see them both below.

Nariko and Sir Daniel mark the 19th and 20th confirmed characters in the game. Will there be more? Only time will tell!

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com

Kid Icarus: Uprising - The Final Showdown

This Saturday saw the grand final of the Kid Icarus: Uprising Battle Events take place in Central London. For the past eight weeks, the series of competitive Nintendo 3DS events have been touring the length and breadth of Great Britain, giving the general public the chance to take on pro-gamer Russki in a tournament to win a trip to IPL 5 in Las Vegas this November.

On Saturday, 24 finalists descended on the Century Club in Soho, (some coming in from Scotland) to duke it out in front of an audience of Nintendo fans. While only one person was going to be walking away with the main prize of the trip to Vegas, five runners up also managed to get their hands on a full deck of Kid Icarus: Uprising AR cards (400 of them!).

A victorious James Rushton

Fighting off fierce competition, James Rushton was the overall winner of the tournament, and he'll be jetting off to Vegas later this year courtesy of IGN and Nintendo. We'd like to thank everyone who took part across the country and those who came down to cheer on the competitors this weekend. Check out the snaps of the event below – a massive thank you to Ace Ashun for supplying!

Source : ign[dot]com

Company of Heroes 2: Small Tweaks Make Big Differences

I’ve sent thousands of American, German and British soldiers to die in battle. I’ve sent men into situations where I knew they would die in order to win the larger fight, seen tanks go from powerful symbols of freedom into burning husks within seconds and put so many craters into quaint villages that they look like the surface of the moon. All of this and more I’ve done in the real time strategy franchise Company of Heroes.

Company of Heroes, more than any other game in any genre, has let me experience the horrors of war. Granted, it’s a representation wrapped up in the conventions of a video game, but it still portrays combat in a realistic enough way that it sometimes makes me reflect on how awful these men had it. Despite two expansions, the original Company of Heroes never took us to the Eastern Front, where more than 20 million people lost their lives. That changes in 2013 with the release of Company of Heroes 2, when everyone will finally get direct control over Soviet forces, taking them into battles fought and won as much by desperation as by sound tactics. Having recently tried it myself, I’ve briefly experienced battles in the most brutal front in history.

Despite having played hours of Company of Heroes, the sequel still threw me for a bit of a loop. The basic gameplay principles from the first game are carried over to the second (you still capture points to collect resources, cover is crucial, vehicle positioning matters, etc.), but many subtle changes have been implemented. Some of them, like the new True Sight mechanic, make the game feel more realistic, and make fighting in tight spaces much more claustrophobic. Since your units no longer have a 360 degree view (but instead have their vision broken up by terrain like they would in real life) you realize how much more frightening it is for a soldier to move into an area with lots of obstructions. Enemies could come from anywhere; intersections, which previously made me think of all the directions I could move, now make me fear what the hell will be around the corner. Scouting has become far more important than it was in the original Company of Heroes.

Likewise, resources play totally differently. In earlier Company of Heroes titles, you captured points with specific resources attached to them; an ammo point gave ammo, a fuel point fuel, etc. This made points with high resources an integral part of the level design, and in multiplayer this often resulted in furious battles to control a specific point that could make the difference between victory and defeat. While the details are still being ironed out, developer Relic is giving you the option to choose what resource you need in Company of Heroes 2. In an effort to encourage players to battle over more areas of the map, Relic leaves it to players to determine which resources are important. This comes alongside a smaller number of capturable points to hopefully make the maps easier to create and for you to tell when you have resources connected. In practice it’s still hard to know how it will shake out. The single match I played against the AI wasn’t enough to learn the maps or the Russian forces intimately enough to know if I should lean my resources toward ammo or fuel. Still, it’s a potentially exciting change because it makes it harder to predict what your foe is up to. Previously, if you knew they were capturing a lot of fuel you could predict what they might be gearing up to, but now you have to do more scouting and stay on your toes.

Even the way that you capture points has been changed for Company of Heroes 2. Previously, the only way to capture a point was to order a squad to take it, meaning you had to click the specific point and have a squad sit on it. This reduced their combat effectiveness, and if you weren’t paying attention the squad could be wiped out with ease. Company of Heroes 2 still allows you to order a squad to capture a point in this way, but alternatively they can just sit within a small radius of a point to take it. It’s a seemingly minor change, but it means that combat around points can become a lot more interesting, as each side is vying to see who can stay within proximity of a point long enough to capture it. It also means that things like booby traps or teller mines from Company of Heroes, which relied on the fact that the enemy was going to need to reach the point itself, won’t be effective and likely won’t be used in the same fashion they were before.

The Russian forces themselves obviously play a lot differently than the armies in the original game. It’ll take hours and hours of play to really get a hold on what makes them so special, but even during the short time I played a few things stood out. First of all, there’s conscript units. These large groups of infantry, normal citizens forced into the war, aren’t great at fighting, but are great for absorbing fire and can merge with other units to reinforce them on the field. For instance, if you had a machine gun crew down to one guy, you could use a conscript squad to bring them back up to their original size. These squads are cheap and efficient, and a bit unnerving when you realize how little value these peasants’ lives hold unless they’re used in specific ways.

Other units also stand out, feeling like variations on the past game’s units. The Maxim machine gun has a massive crew of six people and is a bit sluggish with its comparatively tight field of fire. The Russian sniper teams come in pairs instead of solo and are heavily clad in order to battle the blizzards that now sweep into levels and kill unprepared units. The Katyusha trucks fire Nebelwerfer-like rockets -- albeit a bit inaccurately -- from absurdly far away. The Russians even have an array of tanks, making an armored assault feel viable. Basically, they seem to have a bit of everything, with units that make them feel like an amalgamation of the original Company of Heroes' Wermacht and American forces.

The really striking thing about Company of Heroes 2 is the tone the game sets with its fantastic fidelity and animation. It’s easy to get caught up in the fact that I’m playing a game, but as I watch a group of conscripts struggle through heavy snow while taking machine gun fire, or throw themselves to the ground as an explosion comes a bit too close, I sometimes take a moment to reflect on the actual men and women that did that. These people endured some of the harshest conditions in the entirety of the war, and it’s great to see one of the best strategy franchises ever portraying their plight in vivid detail. It’s not often games succeed at being so much fun to play while simultaneously being intensely visceral in their portrayal of history.

Source : ign[dot]com

Comic-Con: Cosplay Battle 2012 Winners

Comic-Con 2012 has come and gone, but we waited a little extra after the show to let Cosplay Battle 2012 rage on. As always, we tracked down and shot pics of some of the best cosplayers at the show, and let you vote on whose get-up reigned supreme.

We saw Lady Chewbacca, Nyancat, mutants galore, Monster Hunters, Disney princesses aplenty, Sith Lords, shirtless firefighters and confused bounty hunters. We saw lots of spandex, quite a few tights, and enough plastic body armor to choke a Wampa. And we made sure to document it for those unable to make it to San Diego. Click here to see a gallery of every costume from the 2012 Comic-Con Cosplay Battle.

Or, watch below for a video breakdown of the costumed masses:

Costumes squared off, battle by battle, until over 5 million votes were tallied. We now present the Top Ten vote-getters in the 2012 Comic-Con Cosplay Battle.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

We'll be on hand again at New York Comic-Con to bring another epic costume battle to bear. See you there!

Source : ign[dot]com

PlayStation All-Stars Beta Goes Public This Fall

The PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale beta is already raging for a select few, but Sony has revealed that the beta will reach a wider audience in the weeks leading up to its release in late October.

SuperBot Entertainment President Chan Park wrote that “while [the beta accommodates] just a small group now, in the coming weeks we will continue to send out batches of codes as we gradually expand the beta; so keep your eyes open. You just might receive an invitation to join! Keep checking back with the blog for more information around the public beta, starting with early access to PlayStation Plus members.”

So it looks like everyone will eventually gain access to the beta. But PlayStation Plus members will get priority once the closed beta ends.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com

Beta Codes for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Going Out Now

The IGN readers strike again! IGN PlayStation reader Matthew Remenak reached out to us tonight to let us know he received a beta code for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale in the mail.

“Congratulations on joining the Developer Beta for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale!” the e-mail reads. “Here you’ll be among the first to experience the iconic characters of the PlayStation universe coming together in an epic fighting game! We’re very excited to show you the game and all the fantastic features we’ve been working on and we can’t wait to see everyone go all-out in battle to see who’s truly the best!”

Along with a typical 12 character code to redeem on the PlayStation Store, players are given access to PlayStation All-Stars beta message boards to leave feedback about the game for the developer, SuperBot Entertainment.

As for what the beta is aiming to learn, “The focus of this private beta will be to stress-test the sever’s load capability and in-game features.” As such, “Please note that the PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale close beta is a testing program for a work in progress. The game you play today is not indicative of the quality of the final product or its ultimate performance, frame rate, effects, or feature set.”

As seen in the image taken from the e-mail below, the beta has two sets of dates and times right now in which it will be active: tomorrow, Friday, July 27th at noon until Saturday, July 28th at 11:59pm PT, and Friday, August 3rd at noon until Saturday, August 4th at 11:59pm PT.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com