Author: Allen Marshall

Today released on the official Bioware forums was an upsetting thread to most Mass Effect fans, it released two screenshots but also the news that Mass Effect 3will be delayed. The two screenshots can be found here. The thread poster was Chris Priestly, Bioware's community coordinator. The official statement was released:

"Today we have confirmed that Mass Effect 3 will be released in the first three months of 2012. The development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series, ensuring that it exceeds everyone’s expectations.”  said Casey Hudson, Executive Producer Mass Effect series.

Not much else was said about the delay but they will release more information as the release date gets closer. Do you think they should take more time and fix most of the bugs or should they release it as planned and fix bugs that come up through updates? Leave your answers in the comments.

Via Bioware Forums

Today another update to Minecraft was added. On top of the statistics and achievements that were already speculated to be added, they also added weather and two new mine cart rails.

The weather will play a bit of a role in the landscape in the new update. When its snowing in a icy area, you can break the ice but it will quickly regenerate its self. Same goes for snowy landscapes as well.

There are two new mine cart rails, powered and detector rails. The powered rails do what you expect them to do, witch is boost you. The detector rails supply a flow of energy when a mine cart holds a person on the rail. This can be set up to play a music block to notify you, or can be used as a trap.

What do you think of the new features? Will you be checking them out?

Major Nelson confirmed through his personal blog that the newest map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops is called Escalation and will be released for Xbox 360 on May 3rd. He did not state the dates for PS3 or PC and gave no price. He also states that there will be a new zombie map but he does not give a name or description of it.

"In Multiplayer, battle it out in Hotel, on the roof of a Cuban luxury hotel and casino against the vivid backdrop of old Havana; Convoy delivers intense, close-quarters combat at the scene of an ambushed US military convoy; Zoo takes you on a wild ride in an abandoned Soviet Russian Zoo, with danger at every turn; Stockpile pits players in a remote Russian farm town housing secret WMD facilities. For Zombies fans, "Escalation" features a unique Zombies experience." Said Larry Hryb (Major Nelson)

Your thoughts or wishes on the new map pack? Leave them in comments below!

Via MajorNelson.com

Minecraft will be officially released on 11/11/11, according to Notch's (Developer of Minecraft) blog. He personally says that it more like a right of passage mainly because they will be dropping the beta from there name. As of posting Minecraft is in Beta 1.4, recently adding tamable wolves and cookies!

“It’s a bit tricky to really do a release for Minecraft as we keep updating it all the time, For one, the version we deem as the ‘full version’ won’t be very different at all from what the game was like a week ago, and we’ll keep adding features after the release as well, so it’s really more of a milestone when we finally get rid of the Beta label, and some kind of goal for us to work towards. The plan is to be open with this and try to get people to cheer us on as much as possible, but to be open with the fact that the game won’t change much at the actual release day.” Notch said.

He also goes on to say that the next major features added in Minecraft 1.5 will be weather, and achievements and stats, both of which have been previously speculated about. Any features you would like to see in Minecraft? Leave your thoughts on that in the comments!

Via Notch's Blog

The first part of the Portal 2 Comic: Lab rat has been released over at IGN, detailing the events between Portal and Portal 2.  It introduces us to an unseen character with no name, while learning more and more about his origins through flashbacks at his time at Aperture as the story goes on. It explains the mysterious writings on the wall as well as the creation of GLaDOS.

Even more intriguing are 9 pictures that were sent out by Valve's Gabe Newell, that when put together looks suspiciously like a bathysphere. In the background are sets of three numbers assorted in columns. These numbers are said to translate into: "[T]he system is in lockdown. I still have access to thirteen off-site chambers and am installing a test in each one. I am going to need a lot more test subjects to move forward." Could this be a reference to Portal 2? It certainly sounds like it.

For further updates, a bunch of portal fans created this wiki for decoding and sharing ideas. What does this all mean? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments!

Via 1up