For those of you still tromping around the galaxy in Mass Effect 2, BioWare is giving you a helping hand with a new toy. The Arc Projector has been released over the Cerberus Network, the latest piece of free DLC for those who purchased a new copy of the game.

This new heavy weapon apparently “ionizes targets with a non-visible laser to ready them for a high-voltage electrical attack.”

The description continues, “As the lightning-like bolt hits its first target, a sophisticated auto-targeting system paints succeeding targets with the ionization laser, allowing the electricity to take the path of least resistance and arc between them.

We all knew it was coming at some point, but Harmonix has officially confirmed Rock Band 3. The studio published an update on their Facebook page with the official announcement.

The studio wrote, “Harmonix is developing Rock Band 3 for worldwide release this holiday season! The game, which will be published by MTV Games and distributed by Electronic Arts, will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band. Stay tuned for more details!”

We’ve heard hints that Rock Band 3 is under development since last year, when consultant Dhani Harrison suggested that he wanted the title to teach people how to play music. Rock Band 3 will be the second title in the franchise this year, the other being Green Day Rock Band.

Could this be the voice of the the Boy Wonder? The IMDb listing for Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 has kicked up rumors of Robin appearing in the game. Actor Vincent Martella (above) is credited to play the role. IMDb isn’t always reliable for casting notes, but surrounding information suggests this one could be accurate. Martella has experience in game voice acting, having lent his voice to Hope in Final Fantasy XIII. He’s also listed to play “Young Jason Todd / Robin” in the upcoming direct-to-DVD movie Batman: Under the Red Hood.

If the rumor does pan out, it makes one wonder which Robin he would be playing. Dick Grayson has long since become Nightwing, so Arkham Asylum 2 would have to take place in the past for it to be the first Robin. Martella could be playing Jason Todd, as he is in the movie, but Todd was killed by the Joker. That could lend itself to flashbacks or Scarecrow sequences, but likely not an active role. If Martella is a playable Robin, the smart money is on Tim Drake, who is both age-appropriate and alive.

In other casting news, many of the familiar voices from Arkham Asylum are said to return on the IMDb page, along with the inclusion of Bruce Greenwood as Two-Face. You may recall Greenwood as Christopher Pike from J.J. Abram’s Star Trek. He is also credited for a role in the upcoming Batman cartoon, as the Bat himself.

Ex-baseballer Curt Schilling’s studio inks deal to publish PC, 360, and PS3 single-player RPG penned by author R.A. Salvatore; Oblivion, Morrowind vet lead designer; Spawn’s Todd McFarlane art directing.

Electronic Arts’ EA Partners program made headlines last week for striking publishing deals with indie developers Hothead Games and Klei Entertainment. Today, the company made a larger announcement–a Big Huge one, in fact. Ex-baseballer Curt Schilling’s developer 38 Studios has struck a deal with EA to publish an upcoming single-player role-playing game. The deal does not extend to 38 Studios’ massively multiplayer project, code-named Copernicus.

EA just added another arrow to its RPG quiver.

Code-named “Project Mercury,” the single-player RPG is being developed by Rise of Nations studio Big Huge Games for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. (After then-owner THQ threatened to close the studio in 2009, 38 Studios stepped in and bought the Maryland-based developer.) It will be an all-new intellectual property cocreated fantasy by comic-book artist Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and author R.A. Salvatore (The DemonWars Saga). Both men helped Schilling found 38 Studios–then called Green Monster Games–in 2006, and respectively serve as art director and “executive creator of worlds” at the Maynard, Massachusetts studio. The game will not be based on any of Salvatore’s or MacFarlane’s previous work.

Though 38 Studios is a relatively new operation, Project Mercury has some seasoned development talent behind it. Its project lead is Ken Rolston, who was lead designer on Bethesda Softworks’ acclaimed high-fantasy RPGs The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Several other Bethesda alumni are working on the project, as well as a senior designer from Lucasarts’ the Force Unleashed. Veterans of Civilization and Civilization II are also on board.

According to EA Partners general manager David DeMartini, Rolston and his team will also be able to tap the minds of EA’s own RPG powerhouse. “The guys at BioWare were actually involved in the early discussions with the folks at Big Huge,” he told GameSpot. “They’ve had an opportunity to have some preliminary discussions and preliminary talks. So, I certainly think that you could expect strong collaboration that would include the BioWare team.”

Ken Rolston was lead designer on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Though he would not reveal Project Mercury’s release date, DeMartini said that EA will play “air traffic control for RPG fans” to make sure the game’s launch doesn’t conflict with that of any BioWare titles. The Canadian developer recently released the multiplatinum hits Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins within three months of each other. The first full-fledged Dragon Age expansion, Awakening, is due out next week, with another major release in the series due out in the first quarter of 2011.

Finally, DeMartini said the 38 Studios/EA Partners deal came about due to the friendship between Schilling and EA Sports’ gregarious president Peter Moore. After the two spoke casually about a potential collaboration, an EAP team went to 38 Studios and Big Huge Games to look at Project Mercury, which they (obviously) approved of.

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Q&A: Shooter specialist Stuart Black shares details on “glossy techno-thriller” shooter, due out in Q1 2011; says Black 2 “bit the dust” at EA.

In 2008, EA Games president Frank Gibeau admitted Electronic Arts was pondering a sequel to Black, its gun-centric, 2006 shooter for the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox. While nothing concrete has surfaced about the proposed project, one of the game’s creators has unveiled an all-new shooter that aims to deliver the same sort of highly destructible environments and realistic gunplay.

Bodycount will let players shoot away cover like concrete walls.

The designer in question is Stuart Black, who is now leading a team at Codemasters’ studio in the British city of Guildford. As revealed by a magazine leak yesterday, the game is Bodycount, and is in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Due out in the first quarter of 2011, it is one of the first new internally developed intellectual properties from the British publisher in years.

“When I joined Codemasters, one of the big appeals for me was how serious Codemasters were about original IP,” Black told GameSpot. “But I wasn’t particularly interested in making another shooter, right. I wasn’t really ready to go dipping my toes into those waters again….But, I’m a great FPS fan myself, right, I love playing FPSs and there was just this itch.”

Based on the same proprietary EGO engine as the Dirt racing games and Operation Flashpoint, Bodycount will be a “glossy techno-thriller,” according to Black. According to Codemasters, the game will see players as a commando who kills foes known only as “targets” for a shadowy organization called simply “the Network.” Though he wouldn’t go into explicit detail, Black likened the game’s story to that of the television series FlashForward, in which the world’s entire population has a two-minute blackout during which they see their lives six months into the future.

“It’s not a military game, it’s not a future game, it’s not a game of the past, it’s set now, in the present day, but it has a strong technological thread,” he told GameSpot. “You start in the present, and you take one step into the future during the course of the game. Then, you make your choice on whether you think that’s a good or a bad thing.”

Unlike Black, Bodycount will have a variety of multiplayer modes, including co-op. However, the game’s campaign will remain single-player. Black explained the decision. saying, “As we got into the story more and we got into our characters more, we suddenly realized that from an emotional point of view and the emotional connection we want the player to have, particularly with that lead character, we can’t have another player in there with them. ”

However, just because the multiplayer and co-op modes are separated from the main story, doesn’t mean that the three aren’t interconnected. Said Black, “We also realized that because our single-player campaign is so focused on this character that we actually have an opportunity, with our co-op and our multiplayer modes, to look at more of the back story of the world that the player’s story fits into.”

Codemasters Guilford is also trying to fashion realistic guns like the 2006 game Black.

When asked if the multiplayer and co-op modes would be a prequel like the multiplayer modes in BioShock 2, Black said, “It’ll be both a prequel and a sequel, right, because we’ll be trying to advance before and then after the player was in that part of the world.”

He also said that while the multiplayer emphasis will be on team deathmatch, the game will have something akin to Gears of War 2’s horde mode. The designer overseeing Bodycount’s multiplayer development was in charge of the multiplayer aspect of Burnout Paradise at Criterion Games, where Black also worked.

Right now, Bodycount’s maximum number of players is 12, a number limited by the sheer amount of destructible elements in the game’s world. Black believes it will even outdo recent destructible-environment shooters like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in what he called “intimate” levels of destruction.

As for Black 2, the game designer said it had been in development shortly after the original game’s release, but had been shelved when he left EA. “Not so long ago people were saying, ‘Gee, is there ever going to be a sequel?’ I was kind of thinking, ‘No, I don’t think there is,’” he said. “I don’t know what they’re doing now. I certainly did some preliminary pre-production work on Black 2, once we finished Black, the first three or four months. I moved on quite quickly after that.”

He continued, “A lot of the guys on the team I’m working with here now carried on with that and did a lot of pre-production for about a year or so on Black [2], before that kind of bit the dust. So, I don’t really have personal knowledge about how that all played out. But there seemed to be overall a kind of general lack of direction. I’d be surprised if they managed that again.”

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The PC version of last year’s beautiful action adventure is lots of fun, but you’ll have to overcome its online-only copy protection and high price point.

Score: 8.0 / great

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Kevin VanOrd sharpens his blades as Assassin’s Creed II makes it way to PC in this review.

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As they’ve established previously, Blizzard isn’t anti-console and plans on making another console game — eventually. World of Warcraft might seem like the natural choice for what game to bring to consoles, given its incredible success, and as producer J. Allen Brack told G4tv, it’s certainly something that Blizzard thinks about often.

Asked why MMOs haven’t made much of an impact on consoles, Brack explained, “I think there’s a lot of reasons. There’s not one thing. One is, it takes a long time to develop an MMO. The lifecycle of consoles being what they are, you have to really time when your console’s going to come out, what its projected lifecycle is going to be with when your game is going to be, which is challenging.”

Brack went on to outline the technical challenges of bringing World of Warcraft to consoles, which include the game’s current 15GB size and the issue of releasing patches on a platform that’s controlled by Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. He added, “[A]nd then specifically in the case of WoW, WoW was designed to be a keyboard game and its control scheme and its camera controls and the number of abilities that you have and the spells and how things work are very keyboard-centric. The idea of translating that to a gamepad is a very, very challenging proposition.”

Sega has officially announced the first round of downloadable content for Aliens vs. Predator. The pack will contain four maps that were previously only available for special edition purchasers.

The multiplayer maps are Docks and Machine, which are set in Weyland-Yutani’s abandoned shipping complex and the BG-386 Refinery respectively. The Survivor mode maps include Hive and Outpost.

Look for them on March 18 for $6.99 on the PlayStation 3, and 560 Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360.

Ah, the 1950s — an era when Elvis Presley ruled the radio waves, Senator Joseph McCarthy helped fuel Cold War paranoia, and the internet hadn’t yet made Playboy magazine totally irrelevant. That’s precisely the point in American history that 2K Games hopes to capture with Mafia II, and they’re partnering with Playboy to help lend a little authenticity to the game’s ’50s mobster atmosphere.

The licensing deal allows developer 2K Czech to place more than 50 vintage covers and centerfolds from the magazine’s early history throughout the world of Mafia II. According to the announcement, players will be able to collect these in-game copies of Playboy magazine as they progress through the game.

“For more than 55 years, Playboy has been a part of America’s pop culture landscape, engaging its readers with insightful features, interviews, and fashion spreads, as well as pictorials of some of the world’s most beautiful women,? reads a statement from Playboy magazine editorial director Jimmy Jellinek. “Mafia II is set when Playboy first came into vogue and features characters whose style and attitudes mirror content from our early issues. We’re excited to bring an element of authenticity to the game that is unmatched in the men’s publishing category.”

Following a span of a number of hours yesterday when owners of the PC version of Assassin’s Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 couldn’t play due to problems with Ubisoft’s DRM authentication servers, the company now says the server problems were the result of hacker attacks — attacks that are evidently still ongoing. As of this writing, Ubisoft’s official Twitter account reports the DRM authentication servers are once again under attack, locking some gamers out of their perfectly legally owned games.

An earlier tweet on their account attributed yesterday’s outage to hackers as well, saying “Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30PM to 9:00PM Paris time [8:30AM to 3:00PM EST].” Now, a tweet that was posted about two hours (again, as of this writing) says that “Our servers are under attack again. Some gamers are experiencing trouble signing in. We’re working on it and will keep you posted.”

Yet another earlier tweet claimed that “95% of players were not affected” by yesterday’s server outage, with only a “small group of players” receiving denial of service messages when trying to play Assassin’ Creed 2 or Silent Hunter 5.

After weeks of speculation and a series of less-than-subtle hints from Valve, it’s finally official: Steam is coming to Mac. The folks behind the popular digital distribution service confirmed this morning that they’ll be releasing a version of Steam for Mac OS X sometime in April.

Now, what about all the obvious questions raised by this announcement? Which games are launching with the service? Does Valve plan on using software emulation to run their games on Mac? Will a customer who owns the PC version of a game on Steam automatically unlock the game in the Mac client? The developers answered as many of these questions as they could in today’s press release.

Jason Holtman, Valve’s director of business development, clarified a few key points:

“Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac. Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.”

With the World Cup just around the corner, now is apparently the time to cash in on the hype with a soccer video game. The latest publisher to join the party is Ubisoft, which recently announced their answer to EA’s FIFA and Konami’s Pro Evo series.

Similar to last year’s Madden Arcade, the newly announced Pure Football will attempt to carve out a niche as a more action-oriented arcade title. The gameplay will be five-on-five with no referees, and will support an over-the-shoulder camera that brings the game closer to the field. In addition, it will support four player local multiplayer and 1v1 online play.

Pure Football will feature recognizable names and faces from the world of competitive soccer, and is currently being developed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Look for it in May.

Wedbush’s Michael Pachter predicts 10% software slump to $665 million for last month, March’s “phenomenal” lineup will break industry’s down streak.

The good news is that analysts believe the US gaming industry is getting close to emerging from its prolonged slump at retail. The bad news is that it doesn’t look like the gaming industry entered the light of day during February, despite the release of such top-tier games as BioShock 2, Heavy Rain, and Dante’s Inferno.

Take-Two has already trumpeted BioShock 2’s strong opening.

In a note to investors today, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter predicted that when The NPD Group releases its annual US retail sales recap on Thursday, game software sales will have slipped 10 percent year-over-year to $665 million. Pachter attributed to the decline to what has quickly become a thorn in the gaming industry’s side: the flagging music genre.

“The February comparison is not as tough (+9 percent) as it was in January (+11 percent), but we expect another precipitous decline in music genre sales to around $20 million compared to $75 million last February, and do not expect the decline to be offset by sales of the big launches during the month,” he said.

Pachter believes Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is currently the subject of a heated lawsuit between the publisher and the game’s creators, will make the top 10 best-seller list in February. The analyst’s research indicates that EA’s Mass Effect 2 and Dante’s Inferno, Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus, and Take-Two’s BioShock 2 also performed well during the month. (Of the latter title, Take-Two said last week that it had shipped 3 million units worldwide.)

In terms of hardware, Pachter expects the Wii to shift 455,000 units during the month, a figure down 40 percent year-over-year. The Wii’s predicted decline notwithstanding, Nintendo’s system is still expected to outpace the Xbox 360’s 350,000 units, which itself would be down 10 percent from the year prior. Though rounding out the console sales chart, the PlayStation 3’s 300,000 units represents 9 percent year-over year growth.

With February at its back, Pachter believes the remainder of 2010 will play out swimmingly for the US retail game industry.

“The release schedule over the next four months gives us great confidence in our forward forecast,” Pachter wrote. “In addition to highly anticipated titles like Sony’s God of War III, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII, Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M, and Activision’s Starcraft II, we expect no fewer than 12 games released in the first half of 2010 to sell more than 1 million units apiece, with at least six selling more than 3 million units. In the first half of 2009, there were only eight games that sold more than 1 million units, with only one selling more than 3 million units.”

Pachter is particularly enthused about March’s “phenomenal” lineup, which includes Battlefield Bad Company 2, Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII. He predicted that each of the titles will sell 1 million units during their first month of availability.

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The patch includes tweaks to rout and pursuit moves, bug fixes, and more. Read the readme for details.

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28 new shots posted.

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This patch includes a fix so that the game can continue from the same point that connection is restored. Read the readme for details

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Check out the playable demo for Just Cause 2. You will need Steam to install the demo.

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Ezio opens the city gates for a group of rebels.

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Ezio is enraged when his dying target refuses to talk.

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Ezio stabs his way into a building to eavesdrop on a Templar meeting.

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Half-Life studio announces full support of Apple’s OS for Steam, catalog hits this April; Portal 2 compatibility confirmed; all future games getting simultaneous PC, Mac, 360 release.

Apple’s OS X operating system for Macs has largely been regarded by game designers as the unimportant step-cousin to Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows interface for PCs. Today, Valve announced plans that may go a long way toward changing that phenomenon, announcing that its digital distribution hub Steam as well as its proprietary Source game engine will now be compatible with Mac computers.

Valve will be opening a portal to Macs.

Valve plans to launch Mac support with Steam and its personal library of games–which includes the Half-Life and Left 4 Dead series, as well as Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, and Portal–in April. Valve also said that it has updated its Steamworks development toolkit to allow a game built using the software to be interchangeable between the two desktop platforms.

“Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge,” explained Valve’s director of business development, Jason Holtman. “For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac.”

Valve’s first new game to support the Mac platform will be Portal 2 when it launches this holiday. The sequel to Valve’s highly acclaimed The Orange Box pack-in, Portal 2 was officially announced for the Xbox 360 and PC last week, after a prolonged teaser campaign. The full-length, stand-alone title will include both single- and multiplayer modes in addition to other new features. Valve went on to note that the PC and Mac versions of the game are being developed in tandem.

“Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lockstep,” said Portal 2 project lead Josh Weier. “We’re always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.”

The Bellevue, Washington-based developer went on to note that it now considers the Mac a “tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360.” Further, Valve also intends to release game updates for Windows and Mac editions simultaneously. In fact, Mac and Windows users will intermingle in online matches, playing and communicating on the same servers and in the same game lobbies.

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