Far Cry 3: Tactics, Weapons And Skills

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Follow Dan Hay for a new briefing – learn how to deactivate radio towers and take control of outposts to free the island from your foes’ domination! To do so, you will have access to many vehicles and a wide range of different weapons available, all customizable to your fighting style.

Mortal Kombat VS Gangnam Style

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A group called the Super Zeroes got together to put Mortal Kombat and Gangnam Style together on YouTube. The result is a million views and a mention on the official Mortal Kombat page!

ElfYourself Comes To YouNow.com

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OfficeMax has released the seventh version of its ElfYourself holiday app. This year, they are bringing the ability to turn yourself into a holiday elf to YouNow.com. In mid-December, ElfYourself will come to iOS, letting people create ElfYourself eGreetings on-the-go. View the original website, where over 470 million customized videos have been created, at ElfYourself.com.

 

Steam Hits Over 6 Million Concurrent Users

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Valve’s Steam service reached a new high of 6.05 million concurrent users over the Thanksgiving weekend. Traffic no doubt went up because of the service’s Autum sale, with recent releases like XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dishonored, and Borderlands II on sale at discounts up to 50 percent.

Steam currently has around 50 million users worldwide. Big Picture mode has 500,000 subscribers, Steam Workshop has over 300,000 items and 106 million community contributions.

Source: SteamPowered.com

Zynga Mobile U.K. GM Departs

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Matthew Wiggins has announced that he is leaving his position of general manager at Zynga Mobile U.K. He joined the company when Wonderland Software, which he was CEO and co-founder of, was acquired by Zynga in April 2011.

“For me, the Wonderland Software/Zynga U.K. adventure has come to an end. Earlier this month I awoke to the exciting realization that, after almost three and a half years, I had left that chapter behind and could look ahead to the future,” said Wiggins. “It’s been quite a ride. I wish all the best for the good and talented people who I leave behind.”

“I’m still tremendously excited by the revolution in computing that is happening right now,” he added. “The opportunities for innovation and entrepreneur-ism are even better now than they were then. And having learned so much from the journey I’ve just been on, I can’t wait to use that knowledge to do new things in the future – and of course learn a whole load more.”

Nintendo’s Reggie Says Graphics ‘Dramatically Better’ On Wii U

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By many accounts, the capabilities of the Wii U are roughly on par with that of the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime got defensive when a CNN journalist suggested the hardware between the three systems were roughly equivalent.

“I’m going to have to correct you because the specs are quite different to the competitive systems,” said Fils-Aime. “[The Wii U is] much more graphically intensive. If you did a side-by-side comparison you would actually see that third-party games, like Call of Duty, look dramatically better on our system.”

Fils-Aime also suggested that Nintendo content was the reason to purchase the system if a customer already has an iPad. “Additionally, this tablet is seamlessly connected to the system, meaning there is no lag, there’s no delay – that allows us to add a lot of features that you can’t get on any other competitors’ devices,” he asserted.

Whatever the assertions by Fils-Aime, many third-party titles on the Wii U have been criticized for not meeting the standards of their counterparts on PS3 and Xbox 360. “Without question, it has a few issues,” said Jeremy Parish of 1UP on Mass Effect 3. “This version of ME3 seems a lot less visually stable than, say, the Xbox 360 version – the frame rate is choppier, the animation seems rougher.”

IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey struck out against Wii U’s Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. “Visually, this is hardly going to make your PS3 and Xbox-owning friends envious,” he said. “In fact, Razor’s Edge is arguably uglier than its cousins, with bland textures and a bad case of the ‘jaggies’ combining to create a muddy look that would’ve been called out seven years ago during the Xbox 360’s launch.”

Other sites like GameTrailers have posted side-by-side views of Batman Arkham Asylum: Armored Edition next to the PS3 and Xbox 360 releases, visibly demonstrating the problems with texture loading on the Wii U.

Source: CVG

Wii Mini Outed

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Nintendo has confirmed that a new Wii Mini platform will release at retail. Along with a new form factor, the red and black system will apparently ship with a single Wii Remote.

The $99 system will not be able to play GameCube games and cannot connect to the Internet. Right now, it is believed that the Wii Mini will release on December 7 in Canada, with no announcements made for other regions.

PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale Pixel Ad Work

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Aled Lewis was commissioned to create three pieces for the launch of PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale. These 16-bit images are composites of classic images from films and some characters from the game, like Fat Princess taking on the 72 steps in Rocky, Jak and Ratchet squaring off Reservoir Dogs style and Kratos and Sackboy go one-on-one in the final All Valley Karate Tournament in The Karate Kid.

The work for Vice Magazine U.K. appeared on a 20 meter long, 10 meter high billboard on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch.

Source: Facebook.com

Black Friday Weekend Sales Up Estimated 6 Percent For 2012

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Merchants raked in an estimated $59.1 billion in sales from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday during Black Friday sales, up from $52.4 billion a year earlier, according to the National Retail Federation. Millions flocked to stores and browsed online, and spending per shopper jumped 6 percent to $423.

“Everyone is feeling very bullish,” said Matthew Shay, chief executive of the National Retail Federation. “We are really seeing a five-day weekend that started on Thursday and ends on Monday. The entire week is really getting extended with special promotions that roll out in waves.”

Shoppers were drawn in by sales offers earlier than ever before, some as early as 8 PM Thanksgiving day. 30 percent of consumers who went out shopping over the long weekend were in stores by midnight Thanksgiving, of which 40 percent were between the ages 18 and 34.

The Thursday deals likely sapped some enthusiasm for Friday sales, as it was estimated that Black Friday sales were down 1.8 percent to $11.2 billion. “There was definitely more hype this year for Black Friday, and the shoppers came out in droves,” said James Rushing, a partner in the retail practice at consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

A positive sign for sellers in their confidence in the economy is that sales prices for 75 percent or more off were far rarer. “Retailers are feeling more confident about consumer sentiment,” said Kearney. “They were more focused on making a profit” rather than just making the sale, which “has potential to lead to a stronger fourth quarter.”

Despite the good returns, there’s still concern over the “fiscal cliff,” where tax hikes and spending cuts go into effect at the first of the year. “The economic concern is still out there as are the political concerns,” Shay said. “For that reason people are more prepared this holiday season to spend what they got and look for value, because of what might happen next year.”

“It was quite apparent this year the self-gifting process during Black Friday was on the rise,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, estimating at least a quarter of shoppers treated themselves to a present over the weekend.

Source: LA Times.com

Wii U First Week Sales At 400,000 In U.S.

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Nintendo has revealed that the Wii U has sold roughly 400,000 hardware units during its first week of availability. The original Wii saw 300,000 systems sold and the DS outsold the 3DS 275,000 to 250,000; the 3DS has seen 6 million units sold in its first 21 months on sale.

“Wii U is essentially sold out of retail and we are doing our best to continually replenish stock,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “Retailers are also doing their best to get the product to store shelves. But as soon as product hits retail, they’re selling out immediately.”

Despite Fils-Aime’s assertions, the Wii U is still available at a smattering of retail locations around the U.S. and can still be readily purchased online.

Source: CNET