This Week in Gaming - October 18-24th
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24 Oct 2011, 19:41
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News
Each Monday I plan to cover the past week's latest news surrounding the world of gaming, including major tournament results, headline gaming news and notable gaming releases and updates.
Gaming News
BlizzCon 2011 was held in 
Anaheim, California this past weekend and with it came a series of major announcements relating to the big-3 Blizzard titles. First and foremost, the fourth expansion to popular MMO World of Warcraft was officially announced, titled Mists Of Pandaria. The level cap will be raised to 90 and players will be able to play as the new Pandaren race (yes, they're pandas), which are playable either as Alliance or Horde. There is also a new Monk class which is a hybrid build-able as a Tank, Healer or Melee DPS. Blizzard also announced that if you sign up for a World of Warcraft Annual Pass you will get Diablo III free. Free in the sense that it will come inclusive in the price, ofcourse. Say what you like about Activision-Blizzard, they're incredibly shrewd when it comes to squeezing money out of their playerbase. This deal will keep many WoW subscribers on the hook who would have otherwise quit WoW for Diablo III, while making them highly motivated for the release of the upcoming WoW expansion. The money Blizzard will 'lose' in Diablo III sales will pale in comparison to the amount of money they would have lost from players who would've quit WoW to play Diablo III. The Diabo III Black Soulstone Cinematic trailer was shown, as we follow Deckard Cain's niece, Leah, and her dark visions of the armies of the burning hells.
Blizzard DOTA was revealed as an official StarCraft II mod, featuring an all-star cast of Blizzard's most popular characters including Thrall, Arthos and Muradin to name a few. The official trailer can be found here. For those not keeping score, this takes our total of DOTA clones to 6 for 2012: Original WC3 DotA, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Rise of Immortals, Blizzard DOTA and DOTA 2.
A whole host of juicy Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm news was announced, including a first look at the new preview trailer. The trailer is rendered entirely within the Starcraft II game engine and for that reason alone, you'll want to check it out. A number of new units were announced for each of the 3 playable races and details of these can be found here.
eSports
The Blizzcon 2011 Starcraft II Invitational took place as a backdrop to this year's media frenzy and saw a host of the best Starcraft II players come together to battle it out for a $50,000 first place prize. Before the tournament began, the two South Korean invites were heavily favoured and for good reason as 
NesTea and 
MVP are widely considered the best two players in the world. The casting duo of Tastosis, complimented by the popular Day[9] and JP were on hand to commentate on the event which saw MVP walk away with the Gold.
Still currently underway is this year's Electronic Sports World Cup, held in 
Paris, France. The competition is hosting Starcraft II, Counterstrike 1.6, Counterstrike Source, DOTA 2, Fifa 11 and Trackmania Nations Forever tournaments. The major results so far have seen:
Stephano won the Starcraft II tournament, leaving 
MaNa in second place.
SK-Gaming beat 
Na'Vi in the final of CS 1.6
Aquino beat 
Ralfitita in the Fifa 2011 final
The Counterstrike Source and DOTA 2 competition finals are to be played tomorrow, October 25th.
Notable Releases
This week saw the release of Batman: Arkham City, the sequel to the amazing Arkham Asylum released in 2009. The action-adventure is currently only released for PS3 and XBOX 360 but is due a Microsoft Windows release in mid-November. Much like it's predecessor, Arkham City has recieved outstanding critical acclaim and current scores a whopping 96/100 on Metacritic. There are so few games that could ever hope to be so well regarded and the game is cited by many as quite simply the best single player experience they've ever had. In a year with so many blockbuster releases, this one is too good to overlook.
Next week sees the release of Battlefield 3 which is surely one the most anticipated games of all time, despite the issues surrounding EA's Origin.
Gaming News
BlizzCon 2011 was held in Anaheim, California this past weekend and with it came a series of major announcements relating to the big-3 Blizzard titles. First and foremost, the fourth expansion to popular MMO World of Warcraft was officially announced, titled Mists Of Pandaria. The level cap will be raised to 90 and players will be able to play as the new Pandaren race (yes, they're pandas), which are playable either as Alliance or Horde. There is also a new Monk class which is a hybrid build-able as a Tank, Healer or Melee DPS. Blizzard also announced that if you sign up for a World of Warcraft Annual Pass you will get Diablo III free. Free in the sense that it will come inclusive in the price, ofcourse. Say what you like about Activision-Blizzard, they're incredibly shrewd when it comes to squeezing money out of their playerbase. This deal will keep many WoW subscribers on the hook who would have otherwise quit WoW for Diablo III, while making them highly motivated for the release of the upcoming WoW expansion. The money Blizzard will 'lose' in Diablo III sales will pale in comparison to the amount of money they would have lost from players who would've quit WoW to play Diablo III. The Diabo III Black Soulstone Cinematic trailer was shown, as we follow Deckard Cain's niece, Leah, and her dark visions of the armies of the burning hells.Blizzard DOTA was revealed as an official StarCraft II mod, featuring an all-star cast of Blizzard's most popular characters including Thrall, Arthos and Muradin to name a few. The official trailer can be found here. For those not keeping score, this takes our total of DOTA clones to 6 for 2012: Original WC3 DotA, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Rise of Immortals, Blizzard DOTA and DOTA 2.
A whole host of juicy Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm news was announced, including a first look at the new preview trailer. The trailer is rendered entirely within the Starcraft II game engine and for that reason alone, you'll want to check it out. A number of new units were announced for each of the 3 playable races and details of these can be found here.
eSports
The Blizzcon 2011 Starcraft II Invitational took place as a backdrop to this year's media frenzy and saw a host of the best Starcraft II players come together to battle it out for a $50,000 first place prize. Before the tournament began, the two South Korean invites were heavily favoured and for good reason as NesTea and MVP are widely considered the best two players in the world. The casting duo of Tastosis, complimented by the popular Day[9] and JP were on hand to commentate on the event which saw MVP walk away with the Gold. Still currently underway is this year's Electronic Sports World Cup, held in Paris, France. The competition is hosting Starcraft II, Counterstrike 1.6, Counterstrike Source, DOTA 2, Fifa 11 and Trackmania Nations Forever tournaments. The major results so far have seen: Stephano won the Starcraft II tournament, leaving MaNa in second place. SK-Gaming beat Na'Vi in the final of CS 1.6 Aquino beat Ralfitita in the Fifa 2011 finalThe Counterstrike Source and DOTA 2 competition finals are to be played tomorrow, October 25th.
Notable Releases
This week saw the release of Batman: Arkham City, the sequel to the amazing Arkham Asylum released in 2009. The action-adventure is currently only released for PS3 and XBOX 360 but is due a Microsoft Windows release in mid-November. Much like it's predecessor, Arkham City has recieved outstanding critical acclaim and current scores a whopping 96/100 on Metacritic. There are so few games that could ever hope to be so well regarded and the game is cited by many as quite simply the best single player experience they've ever had. In a year with so many blockbuster releases, this one is too good to overlook.Next week sees the release of Battlefield 3 which is surely one the most anticipated games of all time, despite the issues surrounding EA's Origin.
- MMA won GSL Code S october
both tournaments had a higher prizepool and reputation than ESWC tbh ...
Pm me on irc
What exactly is this WoW Annual Pass? Some kind of Blizzard abonnement?
And if you do that as part of this deal then you get a host of goodies, including Diablo III for free, an in-game mount, some pets, etc.
Source
edit: what baggiez said :s
Some people seem to need time to learn :P
I recommend if you use firefox :)
arkham city was pretty overrated imho, it was good but not a masterpiece, the "leveling system" sucked and there quite alot of lame/flawed plot points. The graphics and enviroment was at top but it felt like it was not fully utilized due to lack of action. Bit of the same feeling like the infamous games.
Can't wait cant wait cant waaaaaaaait
CANT WAAAAAAAAAAAIT!
Wish they'd announce a release date already :<