Author: Sean Patterson

When THQ entered bankruptcy and auctioned off its game properties and studios piecemeal it wasn’t certain that all of the projects would survive. In particular, it was odd to see the Metro series land in the hands of Koch Media, the parent company of Dead Island publisher Deep Silver.

Today, some good news has come for Metro fans.

Deep Silver has announced that Metro: Last Light will be released before summer. The game will be released in North America on May 14 and in Europe on May 17. Last Light will be available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

The game had already been delayed twice, and its most recent release date was sometime in March 2013.

“The new release date is the ideal way to strike the balance between bringing the best out of Metro: Last Light and not keep the fans waiting longer than necessary.” , said Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media. “We won’t leave that time unexploited and will work closely together with 4A Games to make the game even better. It will receive all the attention it deserves.”

Over on the Metro Facebook page, the game’s developers have promised to use their extra time to give the game a “final layer of polish.” They have also stated that pre-order details are being worked out and will hopefully be announced “soon.”

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Girls Gone Wild, the company behind those late-night commercials promoting softcore porn videos starring college-aged women, has filed for bankruptcy.

The company’s founder, Joe Francis, has apparently filed for bankruptcy to protect his company from gambling debts he accrued in Las Vegas. The filing shows that Wynn Resorts Limited is seeking $2 million in gambling debts Francis owes the casino, as well as $7.5 million in defamation damages awarded after Francis accused the hotel of “deceiving customers.” Overall, $10.3 million is listed in the bankruptcy filing as disputed debt.

The Journal report states that Wynn had recently switched from trying to get the money from Francis to attempting to recover the debt from his companies.

Girls Gone Wild was created in 1997 by Francis and was built on late-night infomercials featuring non-sober young women who appear to spontaneously lift their blouses. The company launched a Girls Gone Wild Magazine and a clothing line in 2008.

For his part, Francis seems unconcerned with either Wynn’s lawyers or his company’s bankruptcy. The multi-millionaire posted a picture of himself to his Twitter account along with the message, “The Rumors of my Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.” In the obviously posed photo, Francis can be seen sunbathing in a beachside pool with a cold drink in-hand:

The Ouya console has been quite the success story. The Google Android-powered game console began as a Kickstarter campaign asking for just under $1 million from people who would like to own a more open home video game console. The campaign earned its goal in less than one day and went on to raise over $8.5 million from tens of thousands of backers.

When the campaign ended in August 2012, a tentative release date of March 2013 was set. Though six months seems like very little time to develop a new game console, the Ouya’s developers seem to have followed through on their promise.

Ouya today announced that Ouya consoles will begin shipping to those who backed the Kickstarter campaign on March 28. Production of the consoles is already progressing and will ramp up throughout the next month. As the company announced earlier this month, gamers who didn’t have a chance to back the Kickstarter campaign can expect to see the console hit retail store shelves sometime in June.

Though the launch lineup of games for the Ouya may be sparse, the company used the launch date announcement to reveal several titles that will be coming to the console. In particular, an exclusive projects for the Ouya is being created by Quantum Conundrum developer Airtight Games, and Papo & Yo developer Minority Media will release an “adventure puzzler” for the console this fall.

In addition to the games, Ouya also announced that Thatgamecompany co-founder Kellee Santiago has joined Ouya as head of developer relations. Thatgamecompany is best known for developing Flower and Journey, which ended up on many game-of-the-year lists for 2012.

Today, Icelandic developer CCP Games announced that subscriptions for its Eve Online MMO have surpassed the 500,000 mark.

Eve Online is the science fiction MMO that allows players to operate and own their own spaceships while participating in a player-created universe full of political intrigue and trade negotiations. Because of the game’s heavy reliance on trade and economics, it is often disparagingly (or lovingly) referred to as “spreadsheets in space.” Though the game isn’t free-to-play, players who have enough of Eve‘s in-game currency can purchase monthly subscriptions with it.

“Ten years after release, it is incredibly inspiring that, through a lot of hard work from our Eve Online team, we are crossing the half-million subscriber mark,” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP. “For me, this is a true testament that Eve can live on forever, as long as we do right by her. We have not come to this point alone; millions of players have helped push us to this milestone. I now know in my mind what I previously only believed in my heart: that Eve will outlive us all.”

In January, CCP began an open beta on the PlayStation 3 console for its new game, Dust 514. Dust 514 is a free-to-play first-person shooter that shares the same world as Eve Online. Actions taken in either game can affect the economy, politics, and outcome of battles in the other.

Astronomers have found what could be the first-ever sighting of a planet forming while still in the midst of a dust cloud surrounding a star.

The object, which orbits the star HD 100546, is only 335 light-years from Earth and appears to be a gas giant. If the findings, published this week in Astrophysical Journal Letters, are confirmed, they could provide evidence for hypotheses about how planets form.

“So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations,” says Sascha Quanz, lead researcher on the project and a scientist at ETH Zurich. “If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage.”

For now, the planet has only been detected by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope as a blob orbiting within the star’s accretion disc. The research team also detected “structures” in the dust cloud near the object as well as an increased temperature that could be caused by planet formation. Current planet-formation hypotheses hold that planets form from the gas and dust that are left over after a star forms.

“Exoplanet research is one of the most exciting new frontiers in astronomy, and direct imaging of planets is still a new field, greatly benefiting from recent improvements in instruments and data analysis methods,” said Adam Amare, a member of the research team. “In this research we used data analysis techniques developed for cosmological research, showing that cross-fertilisation of ideas between fields can lead to extraordinary progress.”

(Image courtesy ESA)

Back in December 2012, Dice and EA teased Battlefield 3 fans with a peek at the upcoming “End Game” DLC. That content still isn’t out, but its March release date is finally close.

Today, EA released another trailer showing off all the new maps included in the add-on. The four new maps included in the DLC are “Operation Riverside,” “Nebandan Flats,” “Kiasar Railroad,” and Sabalan Pipeline. As shown prominently in the trailer, dirt bikes will also be introduced in “End Game,” as well as a capture the flag game mode, new assignments, new dog tags, and a new dropship that can perform vehicle drops.

Unfortunately, the tailer does not include any actual gameplay, instead opting to show off the new maps and dirt bikes with frozen panorama shots.

Miami police this week began enforcing a curfew that affects teens living in the Miami-Dade area. An ordinance forbids children under the age of 17 to be out on the streets alone from 11 pm to 6 am, Sunday through Thursday. Exceptions to the ordinance include traveling for work, traveling with a parent, running an errand with written permission from a parent, and traveling to or from school or other events.

The Miami Herald is quoting the Miami police as stating the curfew enforcement is not a response to recent shootings. A string of shootings last weekend left two 16-year-olds dead and some communities are becoming restless for police action.

Instead, a Miami police spokesperson told the Miami newspaper that the curfew is related to the upcoming spring break, when school kids will be out of school.

This is not the first time that Miami police have instituted a curfew for teens. Enforcement of the law is normally stepped up during the summer months, when teens are out of school. The Juvenile Curfew Ordinance has been on the books in Miami for nearly two decades, but it is only in recent years that the Miami police have been using the curfew as a tool to curb violence involving teens.

Last month, Sony sold its Madison Avenue headquarters building in New York for $1.1 Billion. The sale netted the electronics manufacturer around $770 million in cash, which the company needs as it various divisions (electronics, motion pictures, music, video games) have begun to feel the financial crunch of the past few years as well as increased competition from companies such as Samsung. Since Sony’s offices in the building will not be moving, it’s clear that Sony needed some quick cash to prop up its earnings.

Today, Sony announced that it has sold yet another of its buildings. Its Sony City Osaki building in Tokyo has been sold to Nippon Building Fund Inc. and an unnamed “Japanese institutional investor” for ¥111.1 billion, or around $1.2 billion. The deal was very similar to the Madison Avenue sale, and Sony will be leasing its current space in the building for five years.

Sony has stated the sales are part of a reorganization of its assets “in an effor to strengthen its corporate structure.” In other words, they needed the money.

Why does Sony need all of this quick cash? To keep investors happy is another easy answer, but to speculate, as the company nears production of the recently announced (and powerful) PlayStation 4, it could be preparing to take a loss on each console in order to challenge Microsoft in the U.S. home video game console market.

Earlier this week, Samsung revealed that the unveiling of its next flagship Android smartphone will take place in New York City on March 14. The Korean company invited people to “come and meet the next galaxy,” implying that the event will be the unveiling of the Galaxy S IV, which has been rumored for some time.

Today, Samsung has followed up on its announcement with another invitation. This time, the company is inviting people to come to Times Square on March 14. A new invitation, seen below, was posted to the Samsung Facebook page. The message “be ready 4 the next galaxy” isn’t too subtle in indicating that the Galaxy S IV is coming.

People are invited to come to Times Square at 7 pm on March 14 to “experience Samsung’s new flagship smartphone at Times Square.” It’s unclear whether the actual devices will be shown off at the location (and, if so, whether people will be able to actually hold one or turn it on), or whether the Samsung announcement will simply be streamed live at the location.

Everyone who isn’t a New Yorker, or who doesn’t want to stand out in the cold for a look at a smartphone that won’t be available for weeks, the Samsung presentation will be streamed live on the SamsungMobile YouTube channel.

Despite the announcement of the PlayStation 4, Naughty Dog is still putting the finishing touches on what is likely to be one of the last big exclusives for the PlayStation 4.

The Last of Us is now a little over three months away from its delayed June 14 release date, and but the game’s marketing campaign is rolling ahead with developer diaries that give gamers a glimpse into what the developers were thinking while designing and implementing the game. First on the list of things they were thinking: the “zombies” aren’t zombies.

In the first The Last of Us dev diary, titled “Hush,” Naughty dog talks about its inspirations for the “infected,” including parasitic fungi that take over ants. The art design for the infected evidently came from research done on real skin infections and fungal infections, which explains their disgusting appearance. The developers go on to comment about the sound design for the infected and a bit about their life cycle.

It was around this time last year that Assassin’s Creed III marketing materials began to leak onto the internet, so it’s no surprise that the past week has been filled with leaks for the next yearly installment of the free-climbing, hidden blade-wielding action game. A poster showing the title Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag teased that the game would involve pirates. Later, a map of the Caribbean in 1715 posted online, comprised mostly of Cuba, teased the game’s location and time period.

Today, Ubisoft has released box art for the game, unofficially announcing the next Assassin’s Creed installment. The image of the new assassin character on the box art clearly shows him carrying a cutlass and several flintlock pistols. If these accoutrements, the ship battle taking place in the background, and the name Black Flag aren’t quite enough to cement the game’s pirate theme, there is literally a black flag bearing an assassin’s symbol-themed jolly roger image just behind the character. Current rumors has it that this new assassin will be the grandfather of Assassin’s Creed III protagonist Connor.

One other item of note is that the PlayStation 3 version of the box art contains text indicating that the PlayStation 3 version of the game will include an extra hour of exclusive content. Sony and Ubisoft teamed up for a similar deal on Assassin’s Creed III, and PlayStation 3 owners were treated to a few missions involving Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of West Point.

Earlier today, an image of what appeared to be a final Iron Man 3 poster being displayed outside a movie theater was posted to a tumblr blog.

The leak seems to have caught Marvel and Disney off guard, because an official link to the theatrical poster for Iron Man 3 has now been posted to the Iron Man Facebook page. The poster itself has been posted at Yahoo Movies.

The poster shows Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) in his new gold-and-red Iron Man armor, which appears to be burned off in places. Behind him can be seen other Iron Man suits, implying that Stark and Rhodey (played by Don Cheadle) will not be the only characters using such armor.

Other teaser posters and images for Iron Man 3 have been posted to the Iron Man Facebook page throughout February, including poster’s for Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts, and Ben Kingsley’s villain, the Mandarin.

The movie is scheduled to be released internationally on April 25, and on May 3 in the U.S. Instead of being directed by Jon Favreau, who directed the first two Iron Man movies, Iron Man 3 will be directed by Shane Black, known for directing Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

(Image via Yahoo)

NASA today revealed that it has teamed up with the European Space Agency (ESA) to, for the first time, measure the spin rate of a supermassive black hole.

Using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the ESA’s XMM-Newton, astronomers were able to observe the black hole that lies at the center of the galaxy NGC 1365. The object was found to be spinning nearly as fast as physics will allow, providing researchers with new information about how black holes behave.

“This is hugely important to the field of black hole science,” said Lou Kaluzienski, a NuSTAR program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

The measurements, to be published in the journal Nature, also provide clear evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The data shows that X-rays around the black hole are being warped by the object’s high gravity.

“We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from regions very close to the black hole,” said Fiona Harrison, coauthor of a new study, NuSTAR principal investigator of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole’s incredibly strong gravity.”

Both the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton telescopes were needed to penetrate the gas clouds that obscure NGC 1365′s center. NuSTAR detects high-energy X-ray radiation, while the XMM-Newton detects lower-energy X-rays. By simultaneously observing the X-rays emitted by iron in the black hole’s accretion disc, the telescopes were able to determine that the X-ray distortion was coming from the black hole instead of gas clouds. This means that astronomers can now use iron signature distortions to measure black hole spin rates.

“If I could have added one instrument to XMM-Newton, it would have been a telescope like NuSTAR,” said Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton Project Scientist at the European Space Astronomy Center. “The high-energy X-rays provided an essential missing puzzle piece for solving this problem.”

(Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

On February 15, when the world’s astronomers were busy watching Asteroid 2012 DA14 make a close flyby of Earth, a different space rock entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The shockwave following the meteor’s destruction shattered windows and damaged property throughout the Russian town.

Later that week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it was studying the event, which it predicted may happen every “several of tens to 100 years. The object was found to have been around 17 meters wide and was found to have exploded with a force of nearly 30 times that of the bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, Japan.

This week, NASA has announced that it is also analyzing the event. The agency has released a video detailing everything known about the meteor to date.

In addition to information already disclosed by the ESA, the NASA video reveals that astronomers have been able to devise the meteor’s orbit based on the trajectory of its fireball. The object is now thought to have come from the asteroid belt beyond Mars. Reports of the makeup of the meteor’s debris seem to confirm it was made of stone and a bit of iron, which is common for objects in the asteroid belt.

A new study has shown that patients infected with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) could take over one year to be rid of CRE bacteria.

CRE, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are potentially deadly infections that are highly resistant to antibiotics, making them difficult to treat. Though the bacteria is not normally found in healthy people, patients on ventilators, patients with catheters, or those on long courses of antibiotics are at risk for infection.

The study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, looked at 97 CRE-positive patients who were discharged from the Shaare Zedek medical Center from 2009 to 2010. It showed that patients who tested positive for CRE took an average of 387 days to clear the infection. Even after one year, 39% of the patients remained “positive” for CRE, meaning they could become re-infected or transmit the infection to other people.

“Patients with multiple hospitalizations or those who were diagnosed with clinical CRE disease should be assumed to have a more extended duration of CRE coverage and should therefore be admitted under conditions of isolation and cohorting until proven to be CRE-negative,” said the study’s authors. “These measures will reduce the hospitalization of CRE-positive patients among the general patient population, potentially preventing the spread of CRE.”

The study was also able to identify several risk factors that were related to long periods of infection, including long hospital stays, re-hospitalizations, and whether patients had an active infection or a “colonization” without symptoms.

A new study has shown that a Mediterranean diet could significantly reduce heart risks.

The Mediterranean diet is generally associated with diets that are prevalent in Italy, Greece, and Spain. It includes large amounts of fruits, vegetables, olive oil, cereals, and legumes as well as moderate amounts of fish, dairy, and wine.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, followed 7,447 people with cardiovascular risk factors. One-third of them were put on a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil, another one-third of them were put on a Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts, and the last one-third were put on a low-fat diet.

The two-thirds of patients who were on a Mediterranean diet were shown to have substantial reductions in risk for cardiovascular disease. Overall, a Mediterranean diet along with extra-virgin olive oil or tree nut supplements reduced patients’ risks of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke by 30%.

The study’s researchers claim that these results lend evidence to the hypothesis that a diet high in vegetable fat is more heart-healthy than a low-fat diet. This particular study, researchers said, rejects the notion that a diet must reduce fat intake to improve heart health.

The research was part of the PREDIMED trial, which took place between 2003 and 2011. PREDIMED’s goal was to examine the effect of a Mediterranean diet on cardiovascular disease.

After teasing gamers with previews of the game for months, Capcom today finally announced a release date for Remember Me. The game will launch in North America on June 4 and in Europe on June 7. It will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, which has, as of now, the same release date as the console versions.

Remember Me is an upcoming cyberpunk game set in a futuristic Neo-Paris, the year 2084. Players will take on the role of Nilin, a “memory hunter” who can break into people’s minds and steal or alter memories. The game will also feature some tall building climbing and combat against a varied assortment of enemies. The combat show seems to resemble the Batman: Arkham style of third-person fighting, but the game also features a “Combo Lab” where Nilin’s combos can be altered to suit particular play styles.

The new release date trailer unveiled by Capcom today shows many of these details, along with a hint of what the game’s story will contain:

Last week, EA released a video in which SimCity creator Will Wright sat down with Ocean Quigley, creative director of the new SimCity, to speak about the design decisions made on the new iteration. Wright, who is not directly involved with the creation of the new SimCity, praised the new game for its depiction of consequences for player decisions and the ability to, possibly, make players feel guilty about mistakes or misfortune.

This week, a video of Will Wright sitting down with Maxis‘ Stone Librande, lead designer of the new SimCity (and narrator of earlier SimCity walkthroughs) to talk about his experience of trying out the new game. Wright praises the use of curved roads and the ability for cities to specialize. He also states that instead of identifying with the individual sims living in his cities, he identified with neighborhoods and pictured himself living in them.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Ethan and Joel Coen (the Coen brothers, most known for movies such as Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and The Big Lebowski) will be teaming up with Angelina Jolie on a screen adaptation of the book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.

Instead of the Coen brothers lending their directorial weight to the flick, Jolie will instead take the reins to direct the movie. Jolie has previously directed 2011′s In the Land of Blood and Honey. The Coen brothers will instead be taking over the screenplay, rewriting it.

Unbroken is the biographical account of World War II soldier Louis Zamperini, who crash-landed in the Pacific. He spent 47 days trapped on a raft before washing up in Japan, where he was then held in brutal conditions as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. The book was written by Laura Hillenbrand, who also authored Seabiscuit: An American Legend, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated Seabiscuit in 2003.

Last December, Spiders Studio revealed the first trailer for its upcoming Mars: War Logs. The game was billed as a cyberpunk RPG set on the planet Mars. Players will be able to take on the role of a man named Roy as he battles agains Technomancer dictators who control the red planet’s water resources.

Promises were made that Roy will have “dozens of skills and perks” for players to adapt their play-style to be combat effective, stealthy, or technomancer-y. It’s an ambitious project for something that is slated to be released via Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PlayStation Network, presumably at a price comparable to other downloadable indie titles.

Today, Focus Home Interactive and Spiders released a trailer for the game focusing on the real-time combat players will be involved in. The system appears to be similar to other other modern third-person action games, such as the Assassin’s Creed games or the Batman: Arkham games.

The trailer also provides a glimpse at the game’s skill tree and shows off a few of the powers that can be enabled. The crafting and gear system gets a quick mention near the end, but I suspect that might need a video of its own before the game’s “Spring 2013″ release date.