This Week in Gaming - November 1-7th

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

The Dota 2 beta has been ongoing for some time but only for a very small percentage of players. For the majority, it has been a tease month after month as a trickle of beta keys were sent out in random competitions and on an F&F basis. However, Valve announced this week that they had greatly increased their server capacity and they will be sending out wave after wave of beta keys. Anyone who was previously signed up to the beta but had not yet recieved a key should have recieved an email including a small survey, which will secure your place in the upcoming invitations. Further good news from Valve: "One thing everyone will tell you is that Dota is a game that's more fun with friends. Because of that, we wanted to make sure everyone we invited could bring a couple of friends." Those given an invite will be offered "extra copies," which users can give to friends using Steam's Trading feature.

The official Grand Theft Auto V trailer was released last Wednesday over at the Rockstar website. Numerous gaming websites have dissected the video, looking for new gameplay features or other revealing information. Here is Eurogamer's take on the trailer. One of the more intriguing theories is that players will have the opportunity to play multiple protagonists, specifically those from the previous GTA titles: Carl Johnson from San Andreas, Nico from GTA IV and most exciting of all, Tommy Vercetti from Vice City.

An estimated 6,000 copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 were stolen in a truck heist over the weekend. Reports indicate that the truck was involved in a collision with a car in the south of Paris, before two masked men emerged. It's reported that the criminals used tear gas to neutralise the truck drivers before stealing the video game shipment worth an estimated 400,000 Euros.

eSports

As ngotie so rightly pointed out, "IdrA > *". The American Zerg won the ASUS Republic of Gamers StarCraft II eight-player-invitational competition. He defeated the American/Korean Terran SeleCT in the Bo7 finals, 4:2. IdrA was 1:2 down before he won three straight maps to claim 1st place Gold and $6,000. His talent has never been in doubt but a summer of poor results had led many to believe that his attitude and tendency to 'tilt' were causing his stock to slide. IdrA will have silenced some critics as since the beginning of Autumn he won IEM VI Guangzhou, finished 5th-8th at IPL3 and finished 4th at MLG Orlando, but suffered a shock defeat to the little-known LiveZerg in the Ro16 at the ESWC. Elsewhere at ASUS ROG, Finnish Protoss elfi came 3rd by sweeping fan-favourite White-Ra 3-0 in a PvP 3rd-place matchup.

Notable Releases

In a week that will be seen by most as the week before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 hit the shelves, another universally popular action adventure series returned with their latest release: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. The PS3 exclusive has recieved critical acclaim and is currently scoring 93/100 over at Metacritic.

Despite being released a few weeks ago, I'm taking this chance to throw an honourable mention to a wonderfully addictive game by the name of Dungeon Defenders. The game combines the genres of tower defence and action RPG and was released on Steam on 19th October, 2011. It's similar to Orc's Must Die but the key addition being co-op, as you can play it simultaneously with up to 3 others (and for the harder levels, it's a must). I really can't recommend this game enough, so if you're looking for a game between now and some of the bigger releases next week, make it this! It can be picked up for under £10 or in a friendship bundle-of-4 for under £30. It's been the cause of many late nights already and is the current favourite of God of ET Azatej.

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