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When I first saw a trailer for Sumioni, I thought "well there's a game which will never come out here." Utilising the sumi-e style of ink painting has been done before - most notably by Ōkami and Ōkamiden, but they had Capcom backing them. Sumioni's developers Acquire have made plenty of games which have made it out west - the Tenchu series was very popular before it went moronic and the Way of the Samurai games have a very devoted - if niche - following. Nevertheless, it seemed like it might be a little crazy to expect Sumioni: Demon Arts in english.

Crazy like a fox apparently however, with those princes of localisation XSEED (Atlus obviously being the King) announcing Sumioni would be coming to western audiences and bringing its path drawing, demon magic summoning platformer goodness with it. While a western audience generally only means America and Canada, the PSVita isn't region locked, so that won't be much of a hindrance. In fact, the only real hindrance to almost anything related to the PSVita is Sony, who have apparently run out of methods to deter people from buying the handheld console.

You can check out the English debut trailer for Sumioni: Demon Arts embedded below or in our videos library - going full screen for HD of course.

Kid Icarus has been through hell and back. Originally supposed to be a launch title for the Nintendo 3DS, it still isn't out. Then people found out the control scheme, which wouldn't work for us southpaws (who make up a disproportionate amount of the gaming media.) Then everyone got a chance to check it out at E3, where it was discovered the control scheme was outright ridiculous for right-handed people too. Nintendo just could not catch a break with this game.



Inelegant as it is, they have come up with a solution to their control scheme woes, as all copies of Kid Icarus: Uprising will now come with a stand, which will apparently make the game infinitely easier to play, as you'll only have to fight Kobils and Komaytos without having to fight gravity and your own crippling weaknesses at the same time. While it was first thought the stand would only come with Kid Icarus: Uprising in Japan, 1UP confirms it will be coming with all copies of the game, thank goodness.

On the weekend it seems that it was reported (via Twitter) that THQ was cancelling their upcoming MMO Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millenium. No, wait. They're cancelling their entire 2014 line-up. Further, they were severing ties with Disney at a loss. Guess I wasn't the only person who wasn't a fan of Cars 2!

Less than an hour after his first tweet Industry Insider Kevin Dent also tweeted "until THQ says "x" it is all speculation and rumors." Still, the gates had opened and THQ was cancelling the year 2014. The world would simply have to deal with skipping straight to the year 2015, and female comedians would be able to joke about how they were staying the same age for an entire year.

When my preview of the Darkness 2 began, Jackie Estacado was doing ok. You know how it goes - dinner date with two lovely ladies, best seat in the Italian Restaurant, everybody knows your name. He was living the life, Henry Hill style.

Unlike Henry Hill Jackie Estacado's problem isn't too much cocaine. No, Jackie's gone cold turkey from something different - an evil timeless entity which uses his body as a host and which feeds off the hearts of his fallen foes. And you think being terrified of helicopters was bad.

Unfortunately Jackie's about to relapse. And when you relapse on The Darkness, you grow two arms from your back which tear people's heads off. The Darkness is sort of like having a super power - one voiced by Mike Patton.

Say Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

You might be forgiven for thinking Star Wars: The Old Republic is the only MMO in existence at the moment - I'd pretty much forgotten any others existed myself. Which is why TERA opened its beta registrations at the end of last week and I didn't notice - and wouldn't have noticed if not for a helpful reader.

TERA (short for The Exiled Realm of Arborea) was first released in South Korea at the start of last year and is now making its way to the English speaking world, with the opening of its North American and European beta servers to registration. The combat is designed with a focus on action - you have to specifically dodge ranged attacks for example - which might make it unplayable here in Australia for anyone who doesn't have a really good connection - although reports say the netcode is pretty decent already.

You can register for the North American Beta here, or the European Beta through the official European website. You can also check out the European Beta trailer embedded below or in our videos library - there is a bit more to the game than spinning the camera around in circles.

The first major setback of 2012 has hit, with the FPS XCOM being pushed back to 2013 - making way for Firaxis Games XCOM: Enemy Unknown to take the place of the series reboot. As spotted by IGN in Game Informer 226, we are now going to have to wait until Spring for our Sectoid killing fix - even though it's shaping up to be significantly different to what X-Com fans are used to.

The FPS XCOM was originally slated for March this year, although Take-Two noted it would be pushed back to '2013 fiscal year' when they posted the results of their second quarter back in November 2011. The 2013 fiscal year begins this coming April however, so XCOM still making regular people's 2012 still seemed plausible.




It seems like a good idea to lead with the strategy style XCOM: Enemy Unknown before taking a left turn into FPS territory, what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.

SWTOR gets updated a lot. Like to the point where it seems like any time I want to play the game it's going down in the next half hour for another four hour stint of maintenance downtime. These patches are just to fix serious issues however - they are not the kinds of patches which add in extra content - not like 1.1, which hits next Tuesday, the 17th of January.

1.1 not only has extra content (mostly for endgame naturally) but it also has a name - The Rise of the Rakghouls. The name refers to the the theme of the new content, which will be based around a galaxy sweeping outbreak. We have the Rise of the Rakghouls trailer for you to check out embedded below - or as always you can watch it in our videos library. And read on after the video for more info!

The GA Podcast returns! It�s 2012 and the skeleton crew is back to talk about Star Wars, some other games and more Star Wars! They cover all the news they�ve missed since going on break and break out the king of lists � what is there to look forward to in games in 2012? This episode contains coarse language and goes for 2 hours(ish).

The GA Podcast Episode 118 � Sneak peek exclusive

You can grab the latest episode of The GAP right here or from iTunes if that's your thing. You can also check The GAP out on Facebook if that's your thing!

Andy Wells is back this week with yet another haircut and yet another Weekly Update! This week Andy checks out some of the upcoming games we'll all be playing very soon like Mass Effect 3, The Darkness 2 - and further into the future, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

As Andy points out, you can check out Joaby's look into 2012 right here on GameArena - here for Part One and here for Part Two

Andy wraps things up today with a look at the Consumer Electronics Show which finished up this week - marking the final CES Microsoft will attend. You can watch The Weekly Update right here embedded below or you can alternatively watch it in our videos library - of course going full screen for HD!

That's right fighting fit fighting fans, the first major tournament on the Australian fighting game calendar kicks off on February 17 to 19, with the Ozhadou Nationals. As a part of the Road To Evo series of tournaments, OHNX not only gives competitors a chance to show their skills to the rest of Australia, but it is also an official qualifying event for the Evo World Finals in Las Vegas.

The event will be live-streamed of course, through the official OHNX website - also the place to go for information on the event. Information like the location of the event, which, while I can see is happening in the Sydney CBD, is mostly gibberish to me. 99 on York, The Red Room, Level 1? Which one of those is the venue? Damn it Sydney, stop trying to be cool and just make sense.