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Time has not been kind to the shoot-em-up genre. The decline of arcades worldwide combined with a shrinking playerbase has forced companies who specialized in making these kinds of games to look for new outlets for their craft. One of these developers, CAVE Interactive, happened upon a new niche a few years backreleasing ports of its famed arcade shooters on iOS and other smartphone platforms. It seemed all too certain that CAVE would eventually develop an original shmup game for mobile platforms. Enter DoDonPachi Maximum, a new bullet hell shooter in CAVE's venerated DoDonPachi series, which was released worldwide on Windows Phone 7 earlier this year and on iOS in late October.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the final Capstone Presentations of the students at FIEA, the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, a graduate video game design school in Orlando, Florida. Starting in their second semester, students are to come up with ideas for games that they would like to create. After various critiques throughout the first few months, the potential number of games is whittled down to about three. Students split into groups and work on these three (or so) games for the remainder of the second and third semesters. These will be their final projects. The three games below, Battle Fortress Tortoise, Penned, and Plushy Knight are the final games created by this year's hard-working FIEA students. Fortunately, FIEA recorded the entire presentation, so the videos below will show you exactly how impressive these games are.

With the slew of cookie-cutter zombie shooters out there, it's hard to tell which undead invasion is worth caring about. The survival-horror genre has seen better days, as modern day apocalyptic blitzkriegs tend to focus more on action, making it far too easy for players to blast their way through a horde of bloodthirsty freaks. Deadlight, however, is an entirely different animal. This Arcade title breaks the seemingly ongoing tradition of bumbling about in a methodical stroll through Drab-town by returning to the genre's roots, as well as introducing much needed new elements along the way.

Last week, Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot declared that a new generation of consoles was overdue. "What we missed was a new console every five years," he said. "We have been penalized by the lack of new consoles on the market... it's important for the entire industry to have new consoles because it helps creativity."Guillemot went on to say that, "If you can't take risks because people don't buy, you don't innovate. And if you don't innovate, customers get bored."The month before, Square Enix's worldwide technology director Julien Merceron chided Sony and Microsoft for letting the current console generation go on as long as it has, saying "It's the biggest mistake they've ever made."

The annual Summer Drought of Gaming is almost over! While there are a few great games that come out during the sweltering weeks of June and July, it's hard to ignore the impending joy of Fall. It's almost upon us! Before that however, Father Time and the videogame industry have collaborated to bring us some amazing titles to look out for during the month of August. Check out these upcoming games and see what piques your interest!

Over the past couple of weeks, BioWare has responded to fan criticism by releasing free Extended Cut DLC, content that would expand the hotly debated endings to Mass Effect 3. Since then, fans have had a lot to say on the matter. We sat down to analyze the endings, discuss our thoughts on how the epic conclusion was handled, and if BioWare actually "fixed" the problems fans had been screaming about for months.Be warned: Major Mass Effect 3 spoilers ahead!

We've all known since the end of The Dark Knight that the Batman story, at least Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale's version, would be coming to an end. So the anticipation of resolution to four years worth of fan speculation is basically a stent put in place to protect against the hemorrhage that'll result from the ending. For many people, this version of Batman is the only Batman they know, and not just from an age standpoint, but in aversion to the Schumacher debacles or the inspired Burton flicks. This is their trilogy. This Batman feels real and rooted in a world close to ours and to think that not only is this the last time we'll experience him this way but that Warner Bros and DC are already planning a reboot feels like bringing your new fiance to your wife's funeral. Nostalgic nonsense aside, you must be wondering how this movie ended up, so here we go.

Burgers, hot dogs, and chlorine. The sweet scents of summer have us craving for our air conditioners and videogames. What could be more American than supporting the ever-growing entertainment industry we know and love? This month, we've got some titles that will make JRPG fans squeal with excitement. Why not? Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and more will be occupying our time in the same way the hippies are occupying Wall Street under the intense heat of the summer sun.

Oh, Nintendo... It would seem the only time you don't announce news is during E3... Lucky for us it's a whole two weeks after E3. In case you all didn't see, last night Nintendo aired a new Nintendo Direct, Nintendo's "online home for exclusive Nintendo news," that talked about the Wii, DS, and 3DS. I'll tell you the biggest announcement right off the batthe 3DS XL. Yeah. I'll say that again. The 3DS XL. More info on that and more after the jump.

Mass Effect 3 - Extended Cut DLC Announced for Next Week

There are times when a fictional universe in another medium can open up a whole realm of possibilities for gaming. Unfortunately, many licensed titles are rarely up-to-par with their film/comic/written counterparts. Yet there are, in fact, quite a few exceptions to this unwritten rule. When Cyanide Studios announced that they were working on a videogame based on the smash HBO series Game of Thrones, I was about as giddy as a drunken high school teenager on prom night. I'm a massive fanboy of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice & Fire series, so the awesome burden of reviewing Cyanide's Game of Thrones fell on my shoulders and was nestled in my arms like a newborn kitten made out of cotton candy.

A couple of weeks ago, Square-Enix unveiled the latest Hitman: Absolution trailer to a whirlwind of controversy. The video featured the main character slaughtering a number of scantily clad female assassins in slow motion after they had (naturally, of course) undressed themselves. "Distasteful" would be a massive understatement. The game spurred a passionate and sometimes enlightening discussion on the internet, as well as enough outrage to compel its developers to clarify their intent. Speaking to IGN, Tore Blystad said, "We just wanted to make something cool, it wasn't the intention to stir up anything."This is exactly the problem. Who thinks this shit is cool? Forget subtext or any other kind of deeper meaning, this was clearly imagined and engineered for one reason and one reason alone: spectacle.No one could've predicted this, but Hitman was only the start of two weeks of gratuitous and repulsive violence. It segued into a new Tomb Raider trailer and peaked last week with the most disturbing E3 Expo I've witnessed yet.

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