Author: Sean Patterson

Ever since The Walt Disney Company bought Lucasfilm late last year, Star Wars fans have been alternately worried and hopeful about the world’s most famous sci-fi brand returning to the big screen. The choice of J.J. Abrams to direct Star Wars: Episode VII seems to have gone over well and a new announcement this week means that, regardless of their quality, Star Wars fans will not be wanting for films in the years to come.

During Disney‘s latest financial call with investors it was revealed that two standalone, spinoff Star Wars movies are currently in the works. Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger stated that the original goal of expanding Star Wars cannon with a sequel trilogy has been broadened.

“We are in development of a few standalone films that are not part of the Star Wars saga,” said Iger. “There are now creative entities working on developing scripts for what would be those standalone films.”

Fans shouldn’t have to worry about one of the movies, which is being written by Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan had a hand in writing The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Interestingly, he also helped write the story for the classic Nintendo 64 game Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, which hasn’t seen a screen adaptation yet.

The other spinoff movie isn’t off to such an encouraging start. It is currently being written by Simon Kinberg, a screenwriter whose credits include X-Men: The Last Stand and Jumper.

NASA‘s Deep Impact spacecraft has snapped several images of the comet ISON (C/2012 S1). The images were obtained over 36 hours on January 17 and 18, from a distance of 793 million km (493 million miles). The comet is expected to come within 1.8 million km (1.1 million miles) of the sun and burn bright enough to be seen from Earth with the naked eye.

“This is the fourth comet on which we have performed science observations and the farthest point from Earth from which we’ve tried to transmit data on a comet,” said Tim Larson, project manager for Deep Impact at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “The distance limits our bandwidth, so it’s a little like communicating through a modem after being used to DSL. But we’re going to coordinate our science collection and playback so we maximize our return on this potentially spectacular comet.”

Comet ISON was only just discovered in September of 2012 by Russian astronomers. NASA has determined that the comet is making its first-ever journey into the the inner solar system. Researchers believe that means the object’s surface will have plenty of volatile material that will be burned off by the sun. Long-period comets such as ISON come from the Oort cloud, a cloud of icy objects that surround the solar system at an incredible distance – as far away as one-third the distance to the Sun’s nearest neighbor star.

NASA has stated that there is no chance comet ISON will be a risk to the Earth. The object’s closest approach to the planet will be on December 26, 2013, and the comet’s head and tail should be visible during its closest approach to the sun.

In addition to the visible light images seen below, data from Deep Impact is expected to provide researchers with infrared data and light curves for the comet. Though the object is currently over 763 million km (474 million miles) from the Sun, its tail is already estimated to be over 64,400 km (40,000 miles) long.

Embedded video from

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

Deep Silver, the publisher of Dead Island, announced today that its zombie island adventure has sold over five million copies worldwide. Though the game received only lukewarm reviews when it was released in 2011, the teaser trailer for the game remains one of the most memorable in gaming history.

“While others focus on ever-increasing development budgets and driving brand messages via ballooning marketing expenditures, Deep Silver stands for hitting the zeitgeist, innovation and fresh gameplay,” said Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media. “Dead Island has an incredibly active and enthusiastic community, and we are thrilled to welcome the five millionth player to the world of Banoi. This once again proves that venturing into new waters in terms of games publishing does matter for success and that even at the end of a console cycle new IPs can be created and nurtured into lasting franchises.”

Koch Media is the parent company of Deep Silver. Last month during the feeding frenzy over THQ Koch scooped up the Metro series and Volition, the studio behind the Saint’s Row franchise.

The announcement of Dead Island sales could be timed to provide solace to Saint’s Row fans who are worried that Deep Silver will not be able to sufficiently support the series. Or, the announcement could simply be part of the marketing run-up to the release of the Dead Island sequel Riptide in April. Whatever the case, the publisher could use some good press after announcing a collector’s edition for Riptide that includes a statue of bloody boobs.

Capcom is serious about its fighting games. Not a week goes by that minor changes and tweaks aren’t made to its games to make them more (or less, in some cases) balanced. So, when the publisher asks fighter fans for their opinion, it’s not likely to be just a simple Facebook popularity poll.

Today Capcom began polling fighting game fans on who their favorite Street Fighter characters are. The publisher claims that the results of the poll will influence games, marketing, and licensing opportunities (such as Sanrio plushies, no doubt).

“Please be honest in your answers,” states Capcom, and the company seems to be pretty serious about getting only opinions from fighting game fans. The poll ends early if the question “Have you purchased any fighting games for consoles, dedicated gaming handhelds or PC in the last five years (2008 – present)?” is answered with a “no.” Those who have bought a fighting game recently get to go on to choose their five favorite Street Fighter characters from the 67 fighters featured throughout the series’ history.

Future Street Fighter games will certainly feature new characters, and there may not be room for some of the less popular characters in the series. Sure, popular and classic characters such as Ryu, Chun-Li, and Akuma aren’t likely to go anywhere, but if you’re a fan of Rufus you might want to make sure your voice is heard in this poll.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was unveiled today via an exclusive look in the latest issue of Game Informer. Now, though, CD Projekt RED (CDPR) has released even more details on the upcoming sequel to its acclaimed series.

First, the melancholy news: The Witcher 3 will be the final Witcher game. That may be distressing for fans of the series, but it also means that CDPR will be focusing on bringing new titles to market, rather than allowing their successful series to jump the shark.

“People may ask if this is really going to be the last Witcher game. Yes, it is,” said Adam Badowski, managing director of CDPR. “Why? Because we believe that we should end the series on a high note. Technology has progressed to where we can finally tell the story the way we want, with the visuals we want, in the world we imagined. This will be the ultimate fantasy RPG experience, and while we’re hardly out of stories to tell, we believe it’s time for us to look to new worlds and new horizons to keep pushing the boundaries of what we can create.”

As announced this morning, The Witcher 3 will be an open-world-style RPG, similar to the Elder Scrolls games.

“The captivating and non-linear story of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt takes place in a rich, truly open-world environment,” said Badowski “A world which is thrilling to explore, full of daring adventures, momentous quests, memorable characters, and unique monsters. Players will freely travel through woods, lakes, mountains, cities and villages. Each region is inhabited by distinct populations with their own customs, legends and problems. The world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is 30 times bigger than The Witcher 2,”

The Witcher 3 will be released sometime in 2014 on “all high-end platforms,” which is code for PC and next-generation consoles. The game will be created using the recently announced REDengine 3, a game engine designed by CDPR specifically for open-world RPGs.

The new teaser trailer for The Witcher 3 isn’t much more than a title reveal. It took around three months after the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077 for that game’s sexy trailer to show up, so a real teaser trailer for The Witcher 3 sometime this spring isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

A NASA balloon has broken the record for longest flight. The balloon, which carries the Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder (Super-TIGER), spent 55 days, 1 hour, and 34 minutes circling the South Pole at 127,000 feet – over four times the altitude of commercial airplanes. The previous record for a balloon of that size was 46 days.

The record-breaking balloon also broke the record for longest flight of a heavy-lift scientific balloon, beating the previous record (set by NASA’s Super Pressure Balloon in 2009) by five minutes.

“This is an outstanding achievement for NASA’s Astrophysics balloon team,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “Keeping these huge balloons aloft for such long periods lets us do forefront science that would be difficult to do otherwise.”

The balloon was held aloft by wind patterns at the South pole. Anticyclonic winds that circulate from east to west in the stratosphere there enable long-duration balloon flights.

The Super-TIGER instrument aboard the balloon measured rare elements heavier than iron in the cosmic rays that constantly strike the Earth’s atmosphere. The data will be used to research the origins of the particles and how they reach their high energy states. Researchers estimate the device detected 50 million cosmic rays, and that the data will take around two years to fully analyze.

“This has been a very successful flight because of the long duration, which allowed us to detect large numbers of cosmic rays,” said Bob Binns, principal investigator of the Super-TIGER mission. “The instrument functioned very well.”

Metacritic, the popular video game review aggregator, has released its third yearly breakdown of the best gaming publishers. The rankings come as an aggregate of the critic Metacritic scores of each publisher’s titles released in 2012. Sales and user reviews are not taken into account.

Somewhat surprisingly, Electronic Arts (EA) has topped review charts this year. This is despite being voted “Worst Company in America” by gamers fed-up with day-one DLC and micro-transactions that are popping up in every one of the publisher’s releases.

Though it may be hard to remember due to the scandals over its ending and day-one DLC, Mass Effect 3 was well-reviewed upon release and tops EA’s list of 2012 games with a Metacritic score of 93. The publisher’s average score was 75.2, and none of its games scored a 49 or lower.

The next three publishers on the list are all first-party publishers: Microsoft with a 73, Sony with a 72.3, and Nintendo with a 71.2. Microsoft was led by Mark of the Ninja‘s 91, but was balanced out by poorly rated Kinect and Xbox LIVE Arcade games. Nintendo was similarly balanced by casual-gamer targeted titles, though Xenoblade Chronicles‘ 92 saved it from falling lower on the list. Similar to EA, Sony also did not have any scores fall below 50, though a majority of its titles fell into the “average” range from 50 to 75.

Capcom (70.4), Warner Bros (70.6), Ubisoft (68.2), Konami (69), Sega (69.9), and Activision Blizzard (64.4) rounded out the top ten. Activision’s highest-rated title was Diablo III (88), but the publisher was brought low by movie tie-in games such as 007 Legends, which managed a 25 Metacritic score.

As for the “mid-size” publisher (those that released between 7 and 14 titles) rankings, Take-Two Interactive (83.1), Telltale Games (83.9), and Square Enix (75.2) led the list. Telltale Games was buoyed by each episode of its The Walking Dead adventure game, which managed to win quite a few game of the year awards.

Dead Space 3 was released in the U.S. today, and already extra content for the title is being announced.

EA and Visceral Games today announced the “Awakened” DLC add-on will be available sometime in March. The announcement states that the content will allow players to “experience the franchise’s darkest chapters as the Necromorph battles become even more gruesome and terrifying than ever before. The add-on will cost $10 via the PlayStation Network or Origin, and 800 Microsoft Points via Xbox LIVE.

“With Dead Space 3 our goal was to evolve the franchise bringing in innovative new features like drop-in/drop-out co-op, weapon crafting, and an engaging atmosphere while still retaining the incredible suspense, horror, action and sound that the series is known for,” said Steve Papoutsis, general manager of Visceral and executive producer of Dead Space 3. “Gamers are going to be thrown in and out of space, taken to a violent new ice planet and allowed to explore several different abandoned spaceships and caves. But we’re not stopping there. In Dead Space 3 Awakened, gamers will experience some of the most disturbing content they have ever seen in a Dead Space game – they are going to love it.”

In addition to new content for fans already deep into Dead Space lore, EA today began a YouTube mini series designed to acclimate gamers new to the Dead Space franchise. Dead Space: A Journey Through Terror will highlight all the important plot points from the first two Dead Space games, and are filled with spoilers. The first episode, titled “Isaac Clarke’s Journey,” details the protagonist’s former battles with the necromorphs.

NASA today announced that Mars rover Curiosity is closer than ever to the first full use of its hammering drill. Over the weekend the rover completed a successful test of the drill’s percussive action.

The “drill-on-rock checkout” left a mark on the rock, named “John Klein,” chosen as the target for the first drill sampling of rock material in the history of Mars exploration. It was another step in the drill testing announced last week.

There is still one more test to be performed before the actual drilling can commence. A “mini drill” test will use both the rotary and percussive capabilities of the drill to create a ring of rock powder around a hole. The test will, say researchers, allow them to test the material and see if it is a dry powder that can be tested by Curiosity’s sample handling equipment.

The rover team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been preparing to use Curiosity’s drill for almost two Earth months now. The event has been carefully prepared for in detail, with researchers taking time to choose a suitable rock target and test every aspect of the drill. Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager Richard Cook has called the event “this mission’s most challenging activity since the landing.”

One of the most frustrating experiences while watching an eSports event online is dropping a stream and having to reload and sit through another commercial while the action continues. TwitchTV, the most popular video game streaming service, has heard customer complaints and is now offering a solution.

The new “Twitch Turbo” subscription service will allow users to remove all ads from the Twitch website. That means no pre-roll ads, no display ads, and no companion ads.

Unfortunately, the service is priced absurdly high at $8.99 per month. A subscription to Netflix Instant Watch streaming is only $8 per month. With a year-long PlayStation Plus subscription, for less than $5 per month gamers could be playing games themselves instead of watching other people game on a stream. Not to mention free ad-blocking software can do the same job as Twitch Turbo for free.

The Turbo service doesn’t only offer ad-free Twitch, however. Subscribers will also get an “Exclusive Turbo Badge” to show off on the site, as well as custom set of new emoticons and exclusive chat colors. Also, subscribers will get priority when interacting with customer support.

TwitchTV is quickly becoming the online destination for streaming games and eSports. Last year the company raised $15 million in venture capital during a funding round. At the time Twitch CEO Emmett Shear claimed that the website was seeing 20 million unique visitors per month.

Last week, Florida Governor Rick Scott and the economic development organization Enterprise Florida (EFI) revealed the sunshine state’s first-ever business brand. The slogan for the brand highlights the good weather in the state, associating it with a good “climate” for business.

“Each day I talk with CEOs around the world to tell them that Florida is the best place to do business,” said Scott. “Our unemployment rate is at a four year low, we’ve created close to 200,000 private sector jobs in just two years, and our K-12 education system has jumped into the top ten in the nation. We’re working aggressively to get businesses to Florida, so Florida families have more opportunities to pursue the American dream – and with this innovative business brand we will continue to attract more opportunities to the Sunshine State.”

However the logo for the brand has a few Florida residents crying sexism. The logo replaces the “i” in the state’s name with a necktie.

The Tampa Bay Tribune received complaints from several locals who claim the necktie implies Florida business is for males. According to the tribune, the EFI considered whether the necktie could be considered sexist, but decided that the tie is a “universal symbol of business.”

Considering just how many asteroids there are in the asteroid belt, it can be difficult to come up with acceptable names for all of them. So, they are given obscure provisional names until a naming organization can bestow names on select celestial bodies. Most named asteroids are named after astronomers themselves, or the relatives of astronomers.

This week, Wikimedia announced that an asteroid has officially been named “274301 Wikipedia” after the open-source internet encyclopedia. The object is estimated to be 1 to 2 km (1 mile) wide and orbits the sun as part of the main asteroid belt.

The name was proposed by Andriy Makukha, a Wikimedia Ukraine board member. It was then submitted to the Committee for Small Body Nomenclature by Yuri Ivashchenko, the head astronomer at the Andrushivka Astronomical Observatory in Ukraine. The official naming was published last week in the the journal Minor Planet Circular, coincidentally the ninth anniversary of the first Ukrainian language Wikipedia article.

The asteroid itself was discovered on August 25, 2008 at the Andrushivka observatory. The object orbits the Sun once every 3.68 Earth days at 2.4 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.

When CD Projekt RED (CDPR) released its sexy Cyberpunk 2077 trailer, dedicated gamers picked apart every frame and discovered hidden messages. Among them was the tease that more information on a “fully open-world game with an intense story” would be coming on February 5. Speculation that The Witcher 3 would be announced quickly spread.

It turns out the rumors were true. The Witcher 3 has been officially announced in the latest issue of Game Informer.

According to the write-up, the game world will be even larger than Skyrim, and the story will not be split into chapters. Instead, gamers will get free reign to wander the massive world slaying monsters, getting involved with the local politics, and crafting weapons and armor.

The screenshots of the game are supposedly running on development hardware. If true, it seems clear that The Witcher 3 will not be appearing on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Though CDPR did not explicitly say the game will be coming to next-gen consoles (such as the PlayStation 4), but it did say the game will appear on all “top-of-the-line” consoles, which is almost certainly code for next-gen consoles. Also, the game will be built on the recently announced REDEngine 3, a “next-gen ready” game engine specifically created for open-world RPGs.

The video feature below reveals a bit about why CDPR chose to go the open-world route, and what may lie in store for Geralt:

A new paper using data from NASA‘s Cassini probe has described in detail how aerosols begin to form in the highest part of the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. The research, say scientists, could help predict how “smoggy aerosol layers” behave on Earth.

The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, states that the smog on Titan begins to form when solar radiation excites nitrogen and methane molecules in the ionosphere, creating a “soup” of negative and positive ions. Collisions among these molecules allows them to grow into more complex aerosols, which coagulate when they reach a lower part of the atmosphere. Eventually the molecules produce the hydrocarbon rain that famously creates the lakes seen on Titan’s surface.

The researchers, based at the University of Reims, looked at data from three different Cassini instruments during the study. Data from Cassini’s plasma spectrometer, its ion and neutral mass spectrometer, and its radio and plasma wave science experiment were examined and compared to data from the Huygens probe, which descended to the surface of Titan in 2005.

Titan is the only other object in the soar system known to have stable liquid on its surface. In December of 2012 the ESA released a high-definition photo of a river valley that runs for over 400 km (248 miles) on the surface of Titan. The picture above shows a flash of sunlight that is reflected off a lake on Titan. The phenomenon is known as a specular reflection.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance may be a cross-platform title, but Sony has gotten Konami to support it as if it were a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Konami today announced that PlayStation 3 owners will get exclusive content for Revengeance. Specifically, 30 VR missions will be available as a bonus for Sony gamers. The look of the levels has, according to Konami, been inspired by the original Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions.

Sony has been making a nice habit lately of providing PlayStation 3 owners with exclusive content for big titles. Over the holiday season PlayStation 3 owners who purchased a new copy of Assassin’s Creed III were treated to an exclusive four-mission story arc to spoil Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of West Point.

The exclusive Revengeance content features no story to speak of, though that might be considered a blessing to anyone who has seen the story dialogue in the game demo released a few weeks ago. Instead, the missions feature “uncut gameplay that pushes Raiden’s Cyborg [sic] body to its limits.” Players will be tested with combat, “tactical maneuvering,” and “stealth-based approaches.” In addition, a “Dwarf Gekko” (the scarab multi-armed sphere thing) can be used as a playable character in some of the missions.

The latest trailer for Revengeance features three of the unlock-able and upgrade-able boss weapons that Raiden can utilize in the main game.

The Wall Street Journal today is reporting that a $23 billion deal to take computer company Dell private is close to complete. The Journal cites “people familiar with the matter,” who state the deal could purchase Dell stock at $13.50 to $13.75 per share.

These price estimates fit within the range that was rumored as far back as mid-January, when it was reported that investment firm Silver Lake Partners would be the major player in the buyout. Since that time, Microsoft was also name-dropped as a potential investor in the buyout talks. Today’s journal report confirms that Silver Lake, Microsoft, and Dell founder Michael Dell are all major investors in the buyout. Dell’s 16% stake in Dell will contribute to the deal, while Microsoft is investing around $2 billion and Silver Lake will pitch in around $1 billion.

Dell, along with other PC manufacturers (such as HP), has been struggling to increase its value in the face of a changing computer industry. As consumers turn more to mobile solutions such as smartphones and tablets, PC sales have been declining. In addition, no new software has come along to spur average PC consumers to upgrade their desktop machines. Just last month a report showed that PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2012. A privately held Dell might be able to make the type of business-wide changes that would upset investors in a public company.

During the latest Nintendo Direct, Nintendo made a point to apologize to early Wii U adopters for the lack of new games coming out in February and March. However, one of the most promising “launch window” titles will be released on March 18 in the U.S (March 28 in Europe).

LEGO City Undercover combines the sandbox, cops-and-robbers gameplay of a Grand Theft Auto title with the family-friendly humor of the LEGO video games. A new trailer released today by Nintendo demonstrates how the Wii U GamePad will be used to display the game map and deliver messages to players. TT Games has also revealed that the GamePad will be used to scan areas for clues or criminals.

One of the best unfulfilled promises when it comes to Aliens games is good multiplayer where some players can take on the role of the xenomorphs. 2010′s Aliens vs. Predator did an okay job with the concept, but it still fell short of that ideal of worried, huddled marines slowly making their way through an alien-infested environment while other players wait for their opportunity to ambush them.

Luckily for Aliens fans, there is always another game just around the corner, which means another opportunity for a new developer to get things right. Next week, Gearbox will release Aliens: Colonial Marines and show the world what it thinks an Aliens multiplayer mode should look like.

A new multiplayer trailer for the game shows that at least some thought has gone into the experience. Colonial Marines will have access to a plethora of customizable weapons and explosives. Xenomorphs, on the other hand, will have 3 different classes to choose from: “soldier,” “lurker,” or “spitter.” Each class has customizable attacks, such as camouflage, disorienting smoke, or acid spit. The trailer even shows off a special class called the “boiler,” which can self-destruct its own head to rain acid onto its opponents.

It’s been known for a while not that the upcoming SimCity will have always-on DRM, though it won’t force players to always play in multiplayer mode. That’s not ideal, and it will likely only end up frustrating users, the way Diablo III’s Error 37 did. If EA and Maxis can manage to provide robust support, though, the DRM is something most dedicated SimCity fans will learn to live with.

What SimCity fans might not be able to live with, however, is seeing content they believe should have come with the game locked away behind a micro-transaction paywall. A recently leaked SimCity game manual has hit the web, and NeoGAF user dmr87 spotted a section titled “SimCity Store.” The section, in its entirety:

Click the banner on the main menu to enter the SimCity store. Here, you’ll find special add-ons for sale. Select STORE to view the full list of additional game content (both free and paid) that can provide you with new gameplay possibilities.

That doesn’t reveal much about what the store will be, but a quick overview of EA’s recent business practices shows that the SimCity store will likely be similar to the store for Maxis’ The Sims 3. The “Digital Deluxe Upgrade Pack,” which adds European City Sets, will almost certainly be in the store on day one.

To be sure, SimCity is a type of game where a constant stream of new, inexpensive content might make sense. EA, though, is making a habit of placing in-game purchases in AAA games that might normally be considered complete. For example, Dead Space 3 will also have in-game micro-transactions for things such as weapon-crafting materials. That doesn’t necessarily mean the drop rate for materials in the game has been reduced to encourage sales, but such a conflict between good gameplay and micro-transaction sales outside of the free-to-play space is worrying.

j2 Global, the parent company of publisher Ziff Davis, announced today that Ziff Davis has acquired IGN entertainment from News Corp. The publisher will take control of IGN, 1UP, AskMen, and other IGN web properties. Ziff Davis is known for publishing PC Magazine, Geek.com, and other niche properties such as ExtremeTech.

j2 estimates that IGN has over 600 advertisers and 53 million monthly unique visitors to its websites. It also stated that the purchase will more than double the revenue of j2′s digital media properties. The price of the acquisition has not yet been revealed.

“This is a transformative deal for our digital media business,” said Hemi Zucker, CEO of j2.

j2 stated that Ziff Davis’ “strength in data analytics” will influence IGN’s marketing, allowing advertisers to “more efficiently reach its demographically attractive audience.” IGN’s audience is generally males from the age of 18 to 34, a highly prized demographic.

“By combining two of the most storied organizations in tech, gaming, and entertainment, we have created a very powerful company capable of producing and delivering content in all forms to an audience that marketers highly value.” said Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff Davis. “IGN and AskMen are tremendous best-in-class brands that we are proud to have as part of our digital media portfolio.”

One interesting thing to note is that this won’t be the first time Ziff Davis has owned 1UP. In 2009 the publisher sold the website to UGO Entertainment, which was acquired by IGN Entertainment in 2011.