Call of Duty Black Ops 3rd map pack

The third Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack will likely hit Xbox Live on June 28.

That's the date emblazoned across a GameSpot advertisement captured in photo form by a Kotaku reader.

It's a larger, higher quality picture of the retail poster leaked earlier in the week, more or less confirming new maps Hangar, Hazard, Silo, Drive-In and another Zombie level.
While Activision offered a "no comment" on the legitimacy of the GameStop poster. Less than two months has passed since the release of the last map pack, which is great news if you're a Black ops fan, and great news for the companies who want more money.

Mass Effect 3 multiplayer

Mass Effect is set to feature a four-player co-op online mode, according to various sources.

Eurogamer reports that the much-rumoured multiplayer feature will include "competitive elements" and "will not compromise" the single-player portion of the game.

A reliable development source has since said that the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer feature will be built around "original missions made for online", which will be totally unique from the solo campaign. 

The source added there would "only be a handful" of co-op missions which have been created with the intention of being "played and played again". Sound boring?.... Sure does, which makes us doubt it's solid fact.

Reports have suggested that the online offering will come in the form of a Horde-style mode, but sources was quick to play down the notion, play down, but not deny. 

Bioware's Montreal studio is said to be behind the co-op side, and was seen to be recruiting for "multiplayer" staff last year.

"Mainstream penetration is a major goal for Mass Effect 3 and those high up feel online co-op is the answer they're looking for," our source said. "EA's keen to push the multiplayer side of the game to help spread word of mouth - so it's not just going to rehash stuff from the campaign. It's going all out."

Officially BioWare's refusing to confirm the Mass Effect 3 online antics, but when pressed on the matter last week, co-founder Ray Muzyka said that the studio is "exploring" multiplayer for all of its games.

Wii U 50% more powerful than PS3/Xbox 360?!

Although Nintendo never likes to talk specs, its new HD Wii U could be up to 50% more powerful than the PS3 and Xbox 360.

So far we know only that the console will pack a powerful multi-core processor of the IBM Power-Architecture range and a custom-designed AMD Radeon HD graphics cards, but there are no official numbers to go with all that. That's if estimates from developers, who apparently told Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia as much, turn out to be accurate.

Its 1080p capability is thought to be on par with Xbox 360 and PS3, but according to Bhatia multiple developers have discovered Wii U's internals to be far more powerful than generally expected. 

"Some of the developers we spoke to indicated to us that the console will have 50% more processing power compared to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. This is yet to be confirmed by Nintendo," said Bhatia. 

While the platform holder has become known for releasing lower-powered hardware at a low cost, Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has already admitted that the Wii U hardware isn't going to be cheap, suggesting there will indeed be some serious power under its hood.

Black Ops map pack 3 leaked

A photograph claiming to show a retail flyer for the next Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack has surfaced online, showing four new maps and a fresh zombie level.

It could be fake, but the attentive will remember that the last Black Ops map pack, Escalation, first leaked online with a very similar retail image.

Angry birds tops 250 million downloads

Simple but immensely popular bird flinging game Angry Birds has cleared 250 million downloads across all mobile platforms.

He also told the site that the company's working on a new a location-based platform which will be built into all Angry Birds games. Title Angry Birds Magic, it'll let you unlock new experiences depending on where you are playing Angry Birds.

"Magic Places will work on any phone," said product manager Ramine Darabiha. "So you can think of Magic as a way to deliver new things via interactions in the physical world."Peter Vestebacka, founder of developer Rovio, confirmed the figure to TechCrunch.

X-Men destiny gameplay trailer

Too Human's take on the X-Men world, X-men Destiny is an RPG style game:

Minecraft Sales Hit 2.5 Million

It's hard to believe that the original PC version of indie sandbox game sensation Minecraft has sold over 2.5 million copies -- and it isn't even officially released yet. That's a whole lot of tree punching and creeper exploding. Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson posted the staggering but not surprising bit of news on his Twitter feed before embarking on a post-E3 vacation this week. 

The announcement comes hot on the heels of some major Minecraft-related developments unveiled at E3, including plans for an exclusive Xbox 360 version of the game featuring Kinect support and a portable "Pocket Edition" for Xperia PLAY.