This month’s EDGE review scores are as follows:

Dead Space 3 – 7
Strike Suit Zero – 6
The Cave – 6
Persona 4 Golden – 9
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time – 7
Proteus – 8
Kentucky Route Zero: Act 1 – 8
Antichamber – 6
Joe Danger Touch – 8
Hundreds – 7
Wave Trip – 7

Thanks to joclo for the tip.

Following the game’s success on Kickstarter, Nicalis has confirmed plans to bring The 90’s Arcade Racer to Wii U. The company will also handle digital distribution responsibilities for the Windows, OS X, and Linux versions, and newly confirmed iOS and Android releases.

Creator Antonis Pelekanos said:

“There was a simple reason why I started this project, ‘What if a racing game with old school principles was built using today’s technology’. I know we can achieve that goal. Working with Nicalis, we can release on more platforms, including Wii U. Nicalis will also support with Unity programming, physics, tuning and general design and production of the game.”

Pelekanos, also known as Pelikan13, previously hinted at a Wii U version of The 90’s Arcade Racer. It’s nice to know that the game will indeed be heading to the eShop!

Source: Nicalis PR

Wii U

1. Nintendo Land – Nintendo
2. New Super Mario Bros. U – Nintendo
3. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed – SEGA
4. ZombiU – Ubisoft
5. Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition – Warner Bros. Interactive
6. Rabbids Land – Ubisoft
7. Sports Connection – Ubisoft
8. Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth – Ubisoft
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Activision Blizzard
10. Assassin’s Creed III – Ubisoft

3DS

1. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed – SEGA
2. New Super Mario Bros. 2 – Nintendo
3. Paper Mario: Sticker Star – Nintendo
4. Mario Kart 7 – Nintendo
5. Super Mario 3D Land – Nintendo
6. Angry Birds Trilogy – Activision Blizzard
7. Sonic Generations – SEGA
8. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask – Nintendo
9. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games – SEGA
10. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes – Warner Bros. Interactive

Activision’s Skylanders franchise just keeps on rolling. Yet another sales milestone was announced today – Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure and Skylanders Giants have collectively accumulated over $1 billion in retail sales worldwide. The feat was accomplished in 15 months.

Both Skylanders titles outsold the likes of Beyblades, Star Wars and Transformers toys in the US and Europe last year. Over 100 million Skylanders toys have been sold through January 2013.

Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, commented on the news:

“The Skylanders franchise became the first kids’ videogame IP to cross the $1 billion mark in just 15 months, and I think we are still just starting to realize its potential. We knew that the simple, but magical idea, of bringing your toys to life in a video game could change both the video game and the toy industries, and more importantly, change the way kids play. And this fall, we’re looking forward to delivering to fans our latest break-through innovation, Skylanders SWAP Force, which lets kids customize their own characters, bringing toys to life to a whole new level.”

Source: Activision PR

Wedbush and EEDAR have provided predictions for the January 2013 NPD report. The actual data will be made available on Thursday.

Predictions from both groups can be found below.

Wedbush / EEDAR December hardware sales estimates (change year-on-year):

360 – 180,000 (-33%) / 260,000 (-4%)
3DS – 160,000 (-7%) / 120,000 (-30%)
PS3 – 145,000 (-24%) / 120,000 (-37%)
Wii U – 125,000 (n/a) / 110,000 (n/a)
DS – 60,000 (-21%) / 31,000 (-59%)
Wii – 52,200 (-66%) / 39,000 (-74%)
Vita – 45,000 (n/a) / 35,000 (n/a)
PSP – 7,500 (-63%) / (n/a)
PS2 – 300 (-96%) / (n/a)
Total – 775,000 (-13%) / 715,000 (-20%)

Everybody’s favorite analyst Michael Patcher had this to say about Wii U sales:

“Nintendo must improve sell-through of its Wii U if it hopes to maintain significant market share in the next generation. The console received a tepid response from consumers, for a variety of reasons: first, we think that the console was misunderstood by many as a peripheral for the Wii; second, the price point for the Wii U is relatively high, and the launch was into a weak economy; and third, firstparty software support was thin, and third-party software was not sufficiently differentiated to convince many that they needed a Wii U as a replacement for their Xbox 360 or PS3. If the Wii U is to thrive, we think that Nintendo must market it more effectively, must speed up the pace of first-party development, and must convince third parties that they must support the Wii U or they will lose market share.”

Source

Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward has a troublesome bug. If encountered, players’ save data may be wiped.

North American publisher Aksys Games said last year that it was looking into the situation, but hasn’t provided any updates in a few months.

An Aksys representative explained why it has been taking so long for the glitch to be addressed:

“I asked the production team and what I was told is that the issue itself was very complicated and investigating the issue took a considerable amount of time. Added to that, the investigation itself required a lot of go-between with three parties involved, one of which was separated by a language barrier and time zone.”

As it stands, an imminent patch isn’t on the way.

“While we’ve made some progress in researching the issue alongside Spike Chunsoft and first party developers, we do not have anything as conclusive as a patch at the present time. We are still cooperating with the developers to find a solution, and I’ll update you as soon as any more details come to light.”

For some reason, this bug only seems to be appearing in US copies of Virtue’s Last Reward on the 3DS. The dev team hasn’t been successful in reproducing the bug in the Japanese version. Peculiar…

Source

We’ve reported on this before, but now we finally have an official date: Starting April 22nd, anyone who currently gets G4TV via their cable or satellite provider will awaken to a brand new channel to replace to dying-brand that was G4. The new name will be the “Esquire Network” and will feature programming similar to ‘Bravo’ but “for men”. It is, as they say, for “the modern man, what being a man today is all about”.

Which mostly sounds like a bunch of vaguely sexist baloney to me, but I guess they think people will watch it! With any luck this will be the last that you hear of the network, since they will feature no gaming related programming whatsoever.

Via Gamespot

LEGO City: Undercover is just a little more than a month away. Nintendo is starting to provide the press with more hands-on time, including the game’s different “acts”.

The latest Undercover details, posted below, cover a few bits of general information as well as “Act 2”.

– Game world is basically an amalgamation of all major United States cities
– Famous landmarks, bridges and locales are very much inspired by places from San Francisco and New York
– Areas include Brooklyn Bridge and Alcatraz Island-inspired locations
– One disguise gives you access to a grappling gun of sorts
– Can use it to shoot hooks in short bursts
– Can wall-jump, wall-run, and vault
– These are all done by pressing the same button in context-sensitive situations
– Anything clearly made of LEGO bricks can be smashed
– Super Bricks contribute to building other things, such as pads capable of summoning vehicles for Chase, elsewhere
– Act 2 sees players infiltrating a criminal organization by committing crimes
– Use the police audio scanner to find criminals
– Control the scanner with the GamePad directly
– Move the tablet around the world and see a wireframe version of LEGO City
– This lets you detect nearby conversations
– Lock onto a signal and listen to assess whether you need to hear more
– You’ll eventually join a manic, bi-polar mobster named Chan
– Need to distract guards by finding the necessary items to start a nearby party, stealing an expensive car and eventually escorting a VIP to a nearby event
– Some of this included the Lego franchise’s patented ‘break it and build it’ gameplay
– Variety in tasks
– This area apparently counts for roughly one percent of the game
– Vast array of collectibles and secrets
– Game has a quick travel system through LEGO City’s subways

Source