Uncharted 3 Beta a Resounding Success as Servers Fail

Lucky PS3 gamers across the world got their first taste of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception yesterday as the PlayStation Plus-exclusive beta got underway.

Exclusive features on that first night? A preview of the game’s server error messages.

Locking Resi 3D’s Save Data: The Dickest of Dick Moves

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a third-person portable horror shooter and a candidate for the “Worst Game Title of the Year,” is stirring up the shit (as the saying goes, right?) due to Capcom’s purposeful decision to disable the wiping of game data from the cartridge. This means you can’t erase it, ever. It’s Capcom’s handheld approach to EA, THQ, etc.’s “Project Ten Dollar”, i.e. online passes and suchlike, to discourage the trading in of games and the selling of them by retailers with zero profit going to the original publisher.

What the eff, man. What these publishers – and Capcom in particular – don’t realize is that by trying to bully gamers into picking up new copies of their games, they’re ultimately losing out.

SG Review: White Knight Chronicles II

In a genre full of perfect examples of both what to do and what not to do, White Knight Chronicles II (officially White Knight Chronicles Eye Eye*) is an eyesore among both sparkling gems such as Disgaea and rougher rubies like Final Fantasy XIII. There’s little in the way of charm, engaging gameplay or even a coherent plot which could have saved this title from being consigned to the deepest dungeons of JRPG hell.

But, in the name of fairness, I feel it’s only right that I share my feelings with you about how exactly this game came to be such a negatively permeating aspect of my life for the past two weeks.

Randy Pitchford Offers All Duke Nukem Buyers Full Personal Refund

In the light of recent negative reports, Gearbox Software CEO and president Randy Pitchford has emerged from the woodwork to offer each and every customer who purchased Duke Nukem Forever a full refund personally approved by his office, in a bid to regain public popularity.

The refund scheme marks an extraordinary U-turn by Pitchford, who recently launched a personal attack on games reviewers who rated the game poorly and even went so far as to admit the game’s poor quality earlier this week.

SG Flix: Kung Fu Panda 2

NB: Kung Fu Panda has been out in US cinemas since last month. It hit UK cinemas on June 10th.

Since the beginning, Dreamworks’ stories of talking animals – Ants, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Over The Hedge – have always found themselves paling in comparison to Pixar’s tales of anthropomorphic cars, insects and space-age robots. In a sure-fire turn for the inevitable, the studio now delivers a sequel with an expected degree of familiarity in the form of Kung Fu Panda 2, with some added heartstring tugging to beef up the storyline.

SG Shop’d: Bobby Kotick’s Film Career

Just so you know, the picture above is not the Photoshop in this article. That really is Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO and star of children’s Christmas audiobooks, in new film Moneyball, which stars Brad Pitt and is out later this year.

Bobby’s not listed on the film’s IMDB page, but that’s how things have been in his movie career for years. Did you know that this isn’t his first time on the big screen? Check out these bad boys for a glimpse into his illustrious past.

Hard Lines: An iOS game hard to turn down

We at Sarcastic Gamer love the little guys of game development, since we’re the little guys ourselves. When an email dropped into my inbox about iOS game Hard Lines from new indie devs Spilt Milk Studios, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you, if only for two reasons. One: it’s amazing. Two: it’s not often that a press release genuinely sells a game with very little extra help.

For more on the saviour of your E3 coffee breaks, read on.

SG E3 2011: ‘Better With Kinect’ The Worst Phrase of E3

If there’s one thing Microsoft’s press conference was disappointingly chock-a-block with it wasn’t Modern Warfare 3, or even Halo (which came a close second). Nope, if there’s one thing Microsoft wanted to lather the love on more than anything it was Kinect, a device apparently abandoned after last fall’s launch: the device is now being skewered on the ends of Mass Effect 3, Forza 4, Ghost Recon, a new Xbox Kinect Dashboard, and a whole heap of other stuff that was doing just fine before the mischievous, bug-eyed bugger hit the scene.

SG E3 2011: How Would Deus Ex’s Augmentations Work in Real Life?

Without a shadow of a doubt, Square Enix’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution is my E3 2011 game of the show. In the shoes of cybernetically-rebuilt security officer Adam Jensen in the year 2027, the game is a combination of first and third-person shooter mechanics combined with a completely customisable set of both mental and physical augmentations allowing for improvements to combat and conversational skills. In the harsh, cyberpunk-inspired futurecities of Deus Ex, these enhanced abilities are part-and-parcel of everyday life when you’re sneaking into secure areas, bashing the gate down or “negotiating” with the security guard at the gate and waltzing right in.

But what if, say, you’re just wanting a McDonalds?

PlayStation Welcome Back Live, Details Here

Sorry to interrupt your Fiction Friday, but here’s a quick Sony-based APB for you all. The PlayStation Welcome Back program is now activated on both European and US PlayStation Stores with a whole heap of games and videos available for download on both PS3 and PSP! There’s also free PS+ time for all, with all the details following over the page.