GamesRelay

With GamesCom looming over us and the three press conferences announced by Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Sony, we take a look at what could possibly be announced by the major three and what they'll be focusing on.

Defense of the Ancients and Valve, two names you wouldn't usually think of together, yet surprisingly Valve are indeed working on a Defense of the Ancients game, or so we're led to believe by a recent trademark filing.

Duke Nukem has more rumors than the woman that hangs round the back of the bike sheds, not that we would know. This time, rumor has it that Duke Nukem: Forever is indeed back in development, this time by Gearbox.

Activision, publisher for the popular award winning Call of Duty games, is finding a new way to make money through its Call of Duty franchise. According to a report, the company is working on a subscription model for the new game.

It isn't rare for companies to register domain names for their upcoming games. Sometimes those domain names can be a play on an un-announced sequel, sometimes they can tell what is coming. So what is Dead Space: Sabotage?

According to a leaked image over on Wireless Goodness the image below, a filing shot from the US FCC could very well be the testing platform for Nintendo's newest handheld, the Nintendo 3DS.

What an interesting 12 months its been for Sony – The PS3 went from problem child to serious contender following a rather successful re-launch and re-branding exercise. In order to assuage negative perceptions of PS3, Sony focused on just how much you can do with the system. A strategy that seems to have worked.

However, despite the European proposition of 'The game is just the start' and the more ballsy American counterpart 'It only does everything', it must be remembered that software shifts systems. Arguably their games line up also improved around about the same time as the price went down and they got their message right.

Has MotorStorm 3 been confirmed? That's according to someone on the NeoGaf forums who posted an image of someone playing the yet to be announced title on the PlayStation 3 with the name "MotorStorm 3: The First Playable".

There's two ways to talk about Final Fantasy XIII. The first is to take the fanboy approach and bitch about the fact it's not a slavish remake of VII or XII – whether openly stated or not, that's the subtext around which people criticize the game (linear flow, no towns, no overworld).

The alternative is to examine the series and understand the team that made it – in order to better gauge what the game seeks to achieve.

The Nintendo Wii has had quite a beating from so-called core gamers... Not least from me. But actually, is the system a poor buy for the hardcore?

On the surface you can see why its been getting a kicking – compared to the HD formats, it's pretty feature-lite, it sinks deeper into a mire of shovelware by the day and publishers have struggled to sell gamer-focused games in meaningful numbers.