After pushing the Max Payne 3 launch from March to May, Rockstar has extended the pre-order period for the game's lavish special edition, originally scheduled to end on January 15. Thanks to the delay, prospective buyers now have until April 2 to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on the $100 package.

It's sort of like activating bullet time -- instead of getting more time to steady your aim, you get more time to steady your mouse cursor over the "add to cart" button.

Britain's developer workforce has fallen 10 percent since 2008, and 41 percent of studio employees laid off between 2009 and 2011 have relocated out of the country, UK-games trade association TIGA reports. TIGA is publishing a survey from Games Investor Consulting that covers three-fourths of the UK games industry and warns of a brain drain in the UK.

Bizarre Creations, a Liverpool studio that closed in 2010, saw one-third of its former employees leave the UK for new jobs in the games industry, according to the report. It also claims that countries such as Canada can entice UK talent because they benefit from tax breaks that reduce the cost of game development. The UK currently doesn't have comparable tax breaks, but "the video games industry is exactly the kind of sector that the Government should be supporting to help rebalance the UK economy," TIGA CEO Richard Wilson says.

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition strikes the US on February 7 and Europe on February 10. It includes every DLC pack -- Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Courier's Stash and Gun Runners' Arsenal -- for $50 on Xbox 360 and PS3, and $40 for PC.

Last year Monaco won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the Excellence in Design awards at the IGF, and this year developer Andy Schatz is hosting the entire show -- and Monaco isn't even out yet. It does, however, look like it can live up to its seemingly preemptive praise in the above video, which offers the game's first full-level run-through. (We've got a preview for you as well!)

The video shows Schatz playing a co-op level, Monte Carlo Casino Heist, with the Hacker and the Pickpocket characters. The gameplay seems frantic, perhaps because this is a later level and Schatz knows what he's doing fairly well, or maybe because robbing a casino is a chaotic task in general.

Monaco will launch on PC/Mac and at least one console when it's finally completed.

Wondering how Trials Evolution's multiplayer mode plays out? Based on the latest gameplay video from developer RedLynx and publisher Microsoft Studios, it's not the disaster of physics we envisioned.

Resident Evil 6 is heading to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 20, 2012, with a PC release to follow, says Capcom. In it, returning favorites Leon S. Kennedy (the "S" stands for "Superhair") and Chris Redfield (tree arms from RE5) will play co-leads, each leading his own campaign through the US and China, respectively. The brand new trailer is just above.

Any of this sound familiar? That's probably because the next entry in the Resident Evil series was outed a bit earlier than its publisher expected this afternoon, when images of RE6 marketing were sent to IGN by a Gamestop employee. Subsequently, a flood of details about the unannounced game were unleashed by a couple different outlets regarding its gameplay, dev team, and characters.

Many of said details have been re-confirmed by Capcom in its own press release, though it's lacking in the specificity we reported earlier. The trailer, however, depicts a new martial-artsy character fighting various ... things (and people), some splashes of cover-based shooting, and a presidential zombie. And is that Ashley? Three words: Oh. Em. Gee.

"Resident Evil 6" may not be representative of the number of Resident Evil games that exist in total, but it looks to be the title of the next entry in Capcom's long-running zombie series. A retail poster spotted by one GameStop-employed IGN reader outs the title, a November 20, 2012, launch date on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and a perfectly spooky drawing of the number six.

Additionally, GamesBeat purports to have insider info from a Capcomer in the know, who says that RE6 will star series vets Chris Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy. Everyone's favorite mysterious, violent lady, Ada Wong, is also rumored role in the yet-to-be-announced game. Scant other details were given, though it is said to be developed by an internal Japanese team at Capcom that's "aiming for a cross between the action/horror blend of Resident Evil 4 ... and the far more action-oriented Resident Evil 5."

After The Sixth Axis tracked down Capcom as the source of a recent viral ad campaign ("No Hope Left"), the company's US reps refused to comment on the meaning of the ads. At the time, it seemed likely that the faux graffiti was tied to the Resident Evil franchise given the stylized biohazard symbol found on the "o" in "No," but now it seems all the more likely to be tied to an announcement at 5PM ET today, lining up with a notably direct video added to the ad's website (found after the break). We'll be here at 5PM -- and beyond, of course -- to let you know if we hear anything more official.

Update 1: IGN is further reporting that both Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy will be playable characters, each teaming up with "unnamed partners" for their own campaign branches -- branches that will apparently cross paths at some point in the game. Ada Wong is supposed to be playable at some point after completing both Leon and Chris' storylines, though a third unnamed character will also have a campaign that must be completed as well before Wong is accessible. All three campaigns will allegedly be available from the jump, allowing players to jump between stories. And finally, RE6 is supposed to be set "across the globe," with China mentioned specifically. This is all according to "sources within the development team."

Update 2: Capcom has since confirmed the game as heading to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 20 with a PC release to follow. Full story here.

Continue Reading

THQ suffered a rocky patch in the universe of potentially fake things this week, with rumors suggesting its entire 2014 game lineup was canceled and that it was in serious financial trouble -- THQ refuted all of these, and there is now some more credence to its denial. One of the games rumored to be canceled was an unannounced Disney IP, which most believed to be THQ's tie-in with Pixar's Brave.

Brave the video game today has a rating on the Australian classification database, published by THQ, developed by Behaviour Interactive and rated PG for mild violence. A senior source at Disney also told Develop that there was no reason to believe Brave was canceled, although THQ has yet to officially announce the existence of the project, Develop says.

While humanity falls apart after a deadly virus sweeps the planet, one gruff individual in the Pacific Northwest of America tries his best to survive.

Shank 2 will leap onto, shoot, stab, stab, shoot, slice, throw a grenade at, and shoot digital platforms starting February 7, when it arrives on PSN and PC in North America. The worldwide XBLA release, along with the European PSN version, will follow on February 8. The price is set for $10, € 9.99, or 800 Microsoft Points, depending on your choice of platform and continent.

Shank 2's marquee feature is a new co-op survival mode that pits two players against a never-ending supply of enemies, so start looking for a friend with the same violent predilections you have.

... Actually, when we put it that way, that sounds like a bad idea.

Continue Reading