MMO Shooter

MMOs are slowly inching their way towards the console market, and although games such as Dust 514 are far from traditional MMOs like World of Warcraft, it shows that the social aspects and chilled competitive nature behind the genre appeal to a large audience.

Like Dust 514, Defiance is a FPS shooter with RPG elements thrown into a huge world where players can play with and against each other.

Players can sign up to the first Beta event over at the developers' website, although positions are limited so it's more than possible that many players will miss out this time round.

Also, the first Beta event is only available to PC players, however the game is making its way to PS3 and Xbox 360 as well, but

Halo 4 MLG

If you're into the competitive side of First person shooters, whether for the social aspect, or for more serious reasons, you'll be happy to know that 343 have finally released the official Halo 4 MLG settings.

The settings are only V1 though, so all is subject to change, and change is definitely expected, especially when Halo: Reach had 8 different versions until it was defined perfectly, and Halo 4 has brought all new physics and gameplay mechanics back into the Halo Universe, so this time round it may take even more tweaking than before.

However, the base settings for V1 include a set structure, and it'll be interesting to see how the community adapts to it. The primary weapon on V1 is surprisingly the BR, taking the DMR completely out of the picture for now. There have been a lot of discussion over which weapon is best, and although there really isn't any clear picture, choosing the BR is a nice initiative and hopefully it'll stick.

Second-hand Games

With the current generation, second hand gaming is a whole market of its own, and being able to play and trade in multiple copies of the game keeps customers happy, and games retailers filled with stock. However, Sony and Microsoft don't seem to agree with this current method.

An understandable reason for this is that with second hand copies available in such abundance, players have become more inclined to pass around copies of games, or buy second hand from a retailer to save costs, in turn generating less profit for the developers. However, being able to trade-in games and use pre-owned material is a commodity that gamers have become all too used to.

SCEJ, (Sony's division located in Japan) recently patented a system that stops games from being able to run on any system other than the first machine or account it was used on. The patented technology will use a special and unique ID tag with each copy of a game. Once played on a machine

Black Ops DLC

If you've made your way to GameStop this month, you may have noticed a poster advertisement for the first DLC pack for Black Ops 2. Although there has been no official announcement from the developers of the game, it's clear that new DLC is coming this month.

It's a little strange that GameStop have been able to advertise this information before an official announcement, but it's likely that they have partnered with Treyarch to allow themselves the honor of showcasing the games content before anyone else.

The new downloadable content title is named Revolution, and if the information on the poster is true, it will be released on January the 29^th.

According to the poster, the new DLC pack will include four brand new multiplayer maps, and a new Zombies map. On the poster, the four multiplayer maps have been named Hydro, Downhill, Grind and Mirage, whilst the Zombie map has been named Die Riese. Currently there is no certainty

Borderlands 2 DLC

As well as confirming that Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt will indeed be a new DLC update next year, Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Games, has told fans that there will be a lot more content to follow in 2013.

Randy had used Twitter to give details on upcoming content, such as Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt, and fans have responded eagerly.

"Sir Hammerlock has a grand adventure in store for us all in the deepest wilds of Pandora. Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt is really badass. Will be best BL2 DLC yet."

As well as new DLC missions and stories, new content for Borderlands 2 will help to keep maxed out players enjoying the game, whilst still offering new content for newer players as well. Around 15% of players are currently maxed out with at least one character in Borderlands 2, according to Gearbox Games, and Randy and the Borderlands 2 team want to act accordingly. 2013 will bring a higher level cap raise, and a possible

Christmas Sales

Christmas marks the time for frantic last-minute shopping and frenzied retailers trying to push more and more customers to their 'winter season sales'. However, if you have a keen eye, you can usually find yourself quite a bargain amongst all of the chaos.

Xbox Live may be a place you'll be happy to find some decent digital sales in time for Christmas, and this is a perfect time to grab the games you haven't had the chance to get your hands on.

Microsoft has put on a sale offering a decent amount of games each day available for you to purchase at discounted prices. Although each day adds new items to the sale, you can still access games from previous days, and

Dead or Alive DLC

Since Dead or Alive 5's release, there have been constant DLC pack releases for the title. Unfortunately for some, most of these packs consist of nothing other than extra costumes for the characters within the game. If you do like being able to have more choice available in your virtual DoA wardrobe, then the new Santa pack 2 may appeal to you.

The new Santa pack actually comes in three different collections so that you can choose the characters you'd want most to wear the outfit, and not have to worry about spending the whole cost to get the costume available for all characters.

The new costume seems pretty generic for all characters, and whilst the male version varies slightly from the female version, both costumes remain the same regardless of the character wearing it.

The Christmas packs are a little confusing, so if you want to find a pack for a specific character, or find the best value to get hold of all costumes, here's

Gears and Metal Gear at VGAs

Although there has been little information regarding new game releases at the VGAs, there were a few announcements, including some new trailers and information on Gears of War Judgement, and a possible new Metal Gear Solid game.

The new Gears of War judgement trailer showed at VGA doesn't really give us any further insight into the story that takes place before Gears of War 1, but instead shows us some fast-paced action scenes that we have expected from previous GoW games.

If you're a fan of the Gears of War series then Judgment won't disappoint you, but to those without any experience playing any Gears of War titles, the new Judgment probably

Halo and its Victories

A little over ten years ago, Halo Combat Evolved landed on the Xbox 360 and helped define what we know as FPS shooters on the console today. The franchise had a very successful launch, and the popularity of the game only grew as more games were released. Halo 2 completely redefined FPS multiplayer for consoles once again thanks to Xbox Live, and since then, Halo games have received a huge amount of support, giving those staying loyal to the much beloved Xbox-exclusive series even more to enjoy.

Game sales for a console-exclusive are never going to be as impressive as multi-platform game sales, but Halo has still managed to amass quite a heavy amount of purchases:

Borderlands Gives SHiFT Keys

So the VGAs have come and gone, and many developers have been honored with awards for their games. Borderlands 2 developer Gearbox, earned in total 4 different awards at the VGAs, and as a company that started out relatively small, this is an amazing accomplishment.

Surprisingly, the biggest award Borderlands 2 took home from the VGAs was the award for the best shooter, and even with the hugely popular Halo 4 and Call of Duty Black Ops 2 being released this year as well, Borderlands 2 managed to grab the award, most likely due to its originality and overall unique combat scenarios.

On top of the best shooter award, Gearbox