Set in 2069, Syndicate takes players into a dark, Machiavellian world run without government oversight with many syndicates vying for total dominance of their local market place. With no one to question their intentions or actions, three mega corporations – Eurocorp, Cayman Global, and Aspari – are at the forefront of this brutal war for control of the pivotal American market. In the world of Syndicate, everything is digitally connected, including the people. Players aren’t limited to the weapons in their hands. Through DART 6 bio-chip technology implanted in their head, players can slow down time and breach the digital world around them to take down their foes using a variety of upgradable hacking mechanics. Syndicate’s blend of fast-paced, futuristic, action shooter settings and story combined with innovative chip breach gameplay instantly immerses players in a unique digital world.

“Our goal with Syndicate is to provide a challenging action shooter for today’s gamers as well as fans of the original. I’m sure they will enjoy and recognize the legacy that made it such a classic,” says Jeff Gamon, EA Partners Executive Producer. “Fans of the franchise will recognize many weapons and environments in the game, but in a whole new way. The game also provides a separate and deep 4-player co-op mode featuring missions from the original cult classic, which adds another layer of depth to the overall experience.”

Syndicate will be available in early 2012 for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and the PC. For more information on Syndicate, please visit www.syndicate.ea.com.

I know all of you loyal Techpedition readers have been clamoring to hear my opinion on the new IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series. You’ve been waiting for the proverbial stamp of approval from yours truly before diving into yet another turtles comic series. All cheesy bravado aside, I’ve never been shy about my love for the TMNT and I can say difinitively that IDW’s take on the Turtles is the most “out of left feild” to date. Caution: Major Spoilers Ahead!!!

With 5 or so proper issues and a Micro series half done, enough of the story is on the record for me to start spilling opinions. First off, Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz are rebuilding the Turtle lore completely. When it comes to this revamp, nothing is off limits. The first story arc not only doesn’t include The Shredder, but for the vast majority of it, the Turtles are looking for Raphael, who is lost. Essentially, the Turtles don’t “become a team” until issue 4, that really sets the tone for series.

The origin story is uniquely different in ways that have never been explored in TMNT fiction. Rather than Splinter being the pet rat of ninja master Hamato Yoshi, he is actually the reincarnated soul of Yoshi in the body of a rat. The Turtles are the reincarnated souls of his 4 (murdered by the Shredder) sons. The mutation they went through was originaly caused by a mutagen accidentally spilled by aliens. In the IDW series, the mutagen is a super soldier formula developed by Baxter Stockman for a “yet to be seen” General Krang.

Probably the most alarming change in the story is the fact that the Turtles don’t age to their “teenage years” as Turtles. Immediately after the mutation, they are full grown Teenage Turtles. This is used as a plot device to have April and other characters interact with the Turtles and Splinter both before and after the mutation. It was a bit alarming at first, and I was questioning the writing until the origins of the turtles came to light. Conveniently, to fit the story better, the Turtles don’t need a 15 year maturation period.

Casey has had a pretty big role as Raph’s first post-mutation friend and his story has seen significant panels. This is probably due to Eastman’s fondness for the character. Clearly there’s alot of backstory that is in the works, especially in the Stockman-Krang relationship, but its being doled out very sparringly.

This is one of my principle problems with the story telling style. Ideas that didn’t make any sense in the first issue aren’t clarified in a timely manner. Personally I love it, but I don’t know if its good for the series itself. Readers that are in for the long haul, like myself, benefit greatly from the serialization of the story, but I can see where jumping into the series midrun could be really hard. Once they are 20-30 issues in, the groundwork will be laid and penatrating the fiction will become very hard.

The writing is the sharpest the TMNT have seen since, Tristan Jones’ Tales of the TMNT stories or the Dreamwave series in 2003. I’m not a huge fan of the art style. Its nice to see the Turtles in color, but I can’t get into the intentionally gritty and slightly absracted dipictions of the Turtles. Luckily the story is strong enough to carry the title. I really miss the art from the Mirage series. That weird Jim Lawson style kinda grew on me. The important thing the series has going for it right now is that its interesting. That’s something the Turtles have needed for a long time.

The most significant new character in the series is a mutant cat named Old Hob. He was mutated along with the Turtles and is the reason Raphael was separated from his brothers. I really like Old Hob, he has a swagger about him that other Turtles secondary characters like Hun or Null have had in the past. I’m not sure if a recently mutated cat being a gang member makes sense yet, but if the short history of the series has shown anything, its shown a resilience to logic breaking plot points. So, I’ll hold off on passing judgement just yet.

I really like it when properties venture in new directions and the Turtles have never been afraid to do just that. This is by far the most radical (ha, see what I did there) departure to date. Eastman being involved in the transformation gives the departure some validaty. I don’t think IDW and Tom Waltz could get away with this series “as is” without having someone close to the Turtles supporting them. I’m sure the fans would rake them over the coals.

A note to IDW as a publisher: As a slightly crazed collector of the comics, I don’t appreciate each book having multiple variants on day one. The first 5 issues had anywhere from 4 to 12 variants a piece. I understand it, they’ve got to make money, but 12! I understand subsequent printings having different covers, but retailer incentive variants and store specific covers are disappointing and nearly impossible to rack down. I end up buying multiple copies of the same book for no good reason. It also takes the novelty of the cover art away. One of my favorite parts of the old TMNT books was the iconic nature of the cover art. With four different covers available for each book, no one cover stands out as THE cover to the book.

On the other hand, I want to praise IDW for releasing the nicest collected book to date of the original Mirage TMNT books. The hard cover collection of the first 8 books of the Mirage series is a beefy, beautiful and true to the original books. The weird Peter Laird, computer re-shading, George Lucas inspired, tragedy of a reprinting has been abandoned. Thank GOD! IDW, please keep these collections coming.

Its not the traditional “my arm turns into a blaster” Megaman or even the extremely popular spin off characters Megaman X, or Zero, its the Megaman found on the original box art for the original game. Yeah, this guy!

Clearly the box art dept had a different idea of what a "Mega" man actually was.

This character looks nothing like Megaman and instead of a blaster in-hand he carries an effin’ gun! Its a series that’s known for its terrible box art, but to bring attention to something so obsure and so bad without qualifying it with an adjective or something, almost proves that Capcom is throwing Megaman under a bus.

Its for certain that Megaman fans will cry foul…they always do, but its very unlikely that Capcom will change anything. The fan outpouring against the cancellation of Megaman Legends 3 hasn’t yielded any success. No games are currently announced for the series and its numerous spin offs are all dead in the water.

...and why the hell is he fat?

Creator of the series Kenji Inafune is no longer with Capcom and the most recent releases were the delightfully retro titles Megaman 9 and 10. Megaman isn’t even getting any love from other Capcom games. Secondary character Zero was included in both Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom with the later also having MegaMan Volnutt (whoever that is). Despite being an overwhelming fan-favorite, he wasn’t added to the re-releases of either game.

In 2010 a Megaman MMO was announced, for it to be cancelled only a year later. What is to blame for Capcom’s cold shoulder towards one of their biggest franchises? Did Inafune piss someone off when he left? Was he the only one championing the name? Have they lost faith in the character? Coming off a decade that saw about 30 or so Megaman games, its surprising to hear nothing but unfortunate news coming out about the Man de la Mega.

Despite Capcom basically saying "Hey you guys, you definitely don't want to play this...it sucks." fans are still clamoring for its release.

The fans are there. Capcom’s major names, Resident Evil, Street Fighter and Megaman all have fervent fan bases. RE and SF fans are getting their itches scratched every 6 months or so, it seems like Dead Rising has replaced Megaman in Capcom’s release calendar.

Here’s an idea, license Megaman out to an American developer, and let them have creative control. Reboot Megaman and bring him into the 21st century properly. Sure, the reboot of Bionic Commando didn’t go so well, but what did they really expect out of Grin? There are dozens of teams that would be honored to reintroduce Megaman to the world. It couldn’t possibly be any worse than what he’s going through right now. I mean com on! this is getting embarrassing.

The 11/20/2012 release has been confirmed and even some details have been spilled. Fan favs Leon and Chris return and each will have their own separate storyline in the campaign. I’m told Ashley being included is a big deal too. Hmm, maybe I should brush up on my RE lore.

As much as I respect Brian Cresente, Brian Ashcroft and Stephen Totilo, and I do, believe me, those guys are doing great things with game journalism, Kotaku seems to take a strange approach to what they consider “post-worthy.” Its like they are trying to turn Kotaku into the catch all for gaming counter culture. Everything from fan art to cos-play to bizarre Youtube videos, Kotaku’s RSS is filled with drivel that probably drives traffic from meme-happy interweb-dwellers. If this is their goal, then bravo, they have succeeded.

However, as a reader that craves smart, text-heavy thought provoking material Kotaku is too hard to sift through. For every high quality opinion blog that’s posted there’s just as many unnecessary fluff topics. Volume-wise, Kotaku posts 30%-40% more content than Joystiq, IGN or Gamespot and nearly 10 times more than Giant Bomb or Destructoid. Sure some of those sites have drastically different coverage models, but 1000+ articles in a month is simply more coverage than what’s actually happening.

A good game site has three types of posts, news (game announcements, studio closures, basically anything grounded in fact), opinion (reviews, editorial posts etc.) and previews (informative pre-release coverage that contains equal parts news and opinion). Kotaku has added a fourth type to this that blurs the line between professional journalism and real time gaming culture pulse measurement. By taking popular game related links from the internet and posting them, Kotaku is essentially sharing the best of the Neogaf and/or 4chan forums as if its worthy to sit beside their Metareviews and Gut-check columns.

This diminishes the value of the real editorial posts, inflates the value of random Legend of Zelda fan art and it creates an overall watered down experience. Is this innovative? Probably, but its not what I want. I’m not looking for cutting edge Skyrim glitch videos or 7 different Asain girls dressed as slutty Bayonettas. Even that video of a frog attempting to eat bugs on an iPhone screen, as funny as it is, doesn’t belong in MY RSS feed. Its time for me to cut the cord.

The news piece of Kotaku I can get from Joystiq, they are fast, clean, and concise when rolling out gaming news. The preview piece I will get from Gamespot and Giant Bomb. Between the two I will get both a vanilla (Gamespot) and colorful (Giant Bomb) idea of what to expect out of upcoming games. The editorial piece I will miss, but there are a number of other sites that can fill the void.

Gawker took alot of heat for their new page layout, but despite that, Kotaku and Gizmodo are still huge names in tech and gaming news. I hate that I’m about to end my subscription to such an oft-quoted source, but with the way their posts are dumped into the world its just easier for me to wait for someone else to reference their material and go from there.

Sure, I will still visit the site during huge media blitz weeks, especially TGS, Gamesconn and other international shows. Their editorial staff typically makes the international trips and covers them extremely well. However, day to day RSS feed reading of Kotaku will probably stop for me all together. I’ll find something more focused in which to subscribe.

A lot has been said about the PSPs library of games…and most of it is bad, but if you are willing to overlook the dated graphics and the at times frustrating battery life and load times, a PSP is still a good purchase, and here’s why.

Lumines 2
Every time I talk about the PSP, I feel obligated to mention Lumines. It was the best PSP launch game and my PSP probably spent half of its life playing Lumines 2. A simple puzzle game that combines stunning visuals and abstract music creation, Lumines is the Tetris of the PSP. Had this been a pack in game, the PSP would have sold double! Ok, maybe that was an overstatement, but you get the point.

God of War: Chains of Olympus and Ghosts of Sparta
Kratos is no stranger to epic adventures and these two PSP titles accurately translate the experience of console God of War games. The stories told may be completely disposable, but any PSP owner deserves to have something as good as God of War to play. These may not look as good as the PS3 rereleases in the God of War Origins Collection, but no other handheld game will allow this much bloodshed.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories and Chinatown Wars
GTA is one of the highest rated series in all of gaming, and the PSP titles are no different. Following the release pattern of the GTA3 PS2 era games, Liberty and Vice City Stories give you more stories and missions in those respective settings. Given the rabid popularity of the source games its hard to go wrong with their spin-offs. Chinatown Wars is a port of the DS game of the same name, and is the highest rated of the three.

Crush
As a relatively obscure Sega game, this may seem like a weird choice. Crush is a 3D platform puzzle game that features level “crushing” abilities. At any point during the game the player can make the entire level 2D, giving it completely different traversal options. The puzzles get twistedly difficult and the structure of the game lends itself to pick up and play gaming.

Resistance: Retribution
As one of the best looking PSP games, Resistance Retribution stands out. It also has all kinds of weird, “connect your PSP to your PS3 features”. Probably the thing Retribution does most successfully is handle the lack of a second analog nub. Through classic shooter controls, and very generous auto-aim, Retribution doesn’t feel clunky and drops you in the action cleanly.

The Litany of Passable Dumbed Down Sony Games
Sony is guilty of sticking to their guns on a lot of things. One of those is establishing a franchise and making games in that franchise. Nearly all of Sony’s first party lines make an appearance on the PSP. Everything from Littlebigplanet, to Gran Turismo, to Jak and Daxter have games at varying levels of quality. There are some flops, like Killzone Liberation, and there are some winners like Wipeout Pure, but if you are fond of Sony game(s). You’ll definitely find something you are at least interested in.

Japan
One side effect of the PSP being crazy popular in Japan is the flood of Japanese developed games being localized for the states. Companies like Square Enix, Capcom and Konami have huge catalogs of Japanese style games on the PSP. Hell, the PSP is where Monster Hunter thrives! The decline of Japanese games since the last console generation has saddened many gamers (at least the ones paying attention and not the ones still playing Chrono Trigger like its new) and for the last 6 years Japanese game’s home has been the PSP. Even weird Japan developed Sony games like Patapon and Loco Roco were PSP exclusives.

The PSP, will be remembered as a risk, to many a failure, and few of its games will have longevity, but is it worth experiencing? Yes, many of the games above can be grabbed for a fraction of the original cost, and if you’re not ready to pony up the cash for a Vita, a PSP is a respectable purchase.

Grand Theft Auto IV – April 2008
Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars – March 2009
Red Dead Redemption – May 2010
L.A. Noire – May 2011
Max Payne 3 – March 2012 (expected release)

In 2010, Take Two revised their fiscal calendar to end March 31. As we all know, stock holders and investors have just as much to do with release dates as the developers themselves. In recent years Rockstar has released one major game annually and in the past 4 years it always been between the months of March and May.

Next year’s Max Payne 3, assuming its not delayed will follow this pattern as well. With the fiscal year closing at the end of March its highly unlikely that Take Two would let Max Payne be pushed back any later than that. The only other game Rockstar has announced is Agent. Very little is known about Agent and with Rockstar not shying away from saying GTAV development is in full swing, Its safe to say that its on deck.

With all this data, here are my release window predictions.

Anytime in 2012 = 1% chance
Jan-Feb 2013 = 1% chance
March 2013 = 45% chance
April 2013 = 5% chance
May 2013 = 24% chance
June 2013 = 12% chance
July-Sept 2013 = 8% chance
Oct-Dec 2013 = 3% chance
Anytime in 2014 = 1% chance

In the event its delayed through March, my money’s on a May release based on historical patterns. Its possible they will try to make it a fall 2013 release especially if Agent makes its way to shelves first. However, If Max Payne gets delayed into the next fiscal year and its a huge hit, my whole chart could be reworked. This also doesn’t take into account other Take Two games, like Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite, Spec Ops: The Line and XCOM.

GTAV is one of the most anticipated upcoming titles and one of the most successful franchises in gaming. A lot of factors go into selecting a release date, these are just a few. Hopefully I’m wrong and we’ll be playing GTAV at the end of 2012, but I don’t think I am and I don’t think we will be. In the mean time, if you need a mob based open world game, why don’t you grab Saints Row The Third, I hear that thing is effin’ bonkers.

Clearly Epic doesn’t understand what a “fortnight” is, or they’ve just decided to run with the weakest pun ever. Very little can be taken from the trailer. It’s good to see colors other than brown and the stylized character design looks to have a certain charm. Scavenging and building forts seem like core mechanics and apparently at night monsters come out. Building things to hid in because monsters come out at night sounds like the nutshell description of Minecraft. Notch needs to call his lawyers.

Here’s the trailer!

The Last of Us looks to be a father-daughter game that’s possibly co-op in the vein of survival horror zombie titles. They clearly aren’t zombies, and it doesn’t look like they are shying away from having the child do some killing. This should be interesting.