14 DAY TRIAL // It's been a Halo-crazy week in the world of videogames, the developers at Bungie talking quite a bit about the beta stage for Reach and about what players can expect. But before getting to the new selection, we also have a Weekend Reading piece looking forward to the summer and an EndWeekGame article about Chaos and how tough it can be to escape its grasp. Plus, there’s a review of White Knight Chronicles.
On Monday, Bungie talked openly about Invasion, the most interesting new mode coming in Halo: Reach, with parts of the map that open up as matches progress, offering up fresh vehicles and weapons for players to use. Meanwhile, the people at Respawn Entertainment, ex Infinity Ward Modern Warfare 2 developers, declared that they were continuing to think about developing videogames featuring plenty of exploding heads.
On Tuesday, a couple of indiscretions from voice actors confirmed that Mister Freeze and Talia al Ghul would be appearing in the upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum 2, while Capcom confirmed that Lost Planet 2 would see guest appearances from Monster Hunter and Frank West.
On Wednesday, official confirmation came that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was being in development, the launch date being set for 2011 just as Bungie claimed that they were expecting about 3 million players to join in once the beta stage for Halo: Reach is launched on May 3.
On Thursday, a leak from Best Buy confirmed the existence of a Legendary Edition for Halo: Reach was coming, complete with a figurine of game protagonist Noble 6 and some other goodies, just as Sony put out a new firmware update for the PlayStation 3, apparently preparing the console for full 3D gaming.
On Friday, we came across details linked to the XCOM videogame announced by 2K Marin, confirming the lack of a global 3D map, and we talked about the launch date and the cover athlete for the upcoming Madden NFL 11.