Weekly Recap Nov 17th: Mass Effect 4 Big Changes, Black Ops 2 Launches, VGA Nominees

Mass Effect 4 is going for some big changes, with the series transitioning over to the Frostbite 2.0 engine, which should prove to be an interesting challenge. The week mostly belonged to Activision's Black Ops 2, which was in the news for a number of different things including one of the biggest launches in entertainment history, with the annual shooter racking up $500 million in one day. Spike TV's VGAs is also getting primed and ready to air and the nominees for this year's categories has been announced, and a few of the entries just might surprise you. These stories and more in this November 17th, 2012 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.

Sunday

Dead Space 3 Looks Like A Game Nobody Will Like, Says Mafia Dev It may not be the worst but some people think it may not be the best either.

Descent Remade In UDK One of the best games during the Golden Era is getting a redo in Epic's Unreal Engine 3.

Project CARS Hits Funding Goals, Goes Into Full Production After being announced in October of last year, Slightly Mad Studios' crowd-sourced racer finally hits its funding goals.

Last Of Us World Premiere Showing During VGAs Naughty Dog plans to showcase more of The Last of Us during Spike TV's VGAs.

Don't Be A Jerk While Streaming Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Or Treyarch Will Ban You This means no flashing your 1-inch junk, no cursing, and basically...well...don't be a guy and you're good.

Why Benjamin Bell Is Right To Sue Activision Blizzard Over Consumer Fraud A little rundown why Blizzard should be held accountable for what they've done.

SEAL Team 6 Punished For Leaking Secrets In Medal of Honor Warfighter Even if they saved the world it still doesn't mean they can't be reprimanded by their bosses for particpating with video games.

Dungeonland Opens Registration For Limited Beta Get in on the game before anyone else with the new limited beta.

Monday

Walking Dead Game Trailer Details Episode 4, Player Stats How many zombies killed? How many teammates killed? How many bandits did you let steal all your supplies? These questions and much more answered in the new game trailer.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Season Pass Includes Nuketown Zombies Map A free map? What is this heresy?!

Blizzard Says Authenticators Aren't Required For Diablo 3 Well, that's a relief.

DMC Vergil's Downfall DLC Arriving Right After Launch Well at least it's not disc-locked, eh?

Minecraft Sells 8 million Copies On PC With A $0 Marketing Budget It's not often that a game moves that many copies without mass marketing.

Dawn of Fantasy Introduces Dragons With The End World Expansion It's becoming a big thing to destroy the game world and start over. Get ready to experience a destroyed world and start over in Dawn of Fantasy.

Marvel Super hero Squad Online Breaks 4 Million Users, Re-Launches Website Gazillion is servicing fans by re-launching the website to celebrate the 4 million mark.

CryEngine Outpacing Unreal Engine in Asia, Says CEO Yerli breaks down who is winning which region when it comes to selling engine licenses, and he claims that CryEngine has Asia all wrapped up nice and neat like a Christmas morning present.

Adam Sessler Returns To Games At Revision3 After leaving X-Play the gaming guru joins another popular gaming network.

Wii U Sensor Bar Required For Wii Games If you want to play your old Wii games you will need the sensor bar.

Mass Effect 4 Brings Big Changes To Series The biggest change is that it's running on Frostbite 2.0.

Tuesday

Assassin's Creed Ezio's Trilogy Arrives For PS3 You can grab the entirety of Ezio's adventure in one package.

Fuse Screenshots: Overstrike 9 Attacks An Arctic Base EA lets some new screenshots loose of Insomniac's new shooter.

Shade 3D For Unity Now Available For Free Design props, objects, characters and animation for Unity using the free app, Shade 3D.

Epic Says Development Costs For Next-Gen Could Double Or blast up by five times.Yikes.

Ubisoft Not Happy With Wii U Price Well, who would be? $350 is a lot for what's essential Wii 1.5.

Offensive Combat Adds Bobby Kotick To Roster, Calls Him Money Sack And you'll get to t-bag this guy into oblivion. Finally!

StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm Release Date Announced, Collector's Digital Deluxe Editions Blizzard finally puts a final stamp on the release date for StarCraft 2.

Wednesday

CD Projekt Says Game Companies Should Put Fans Before Profits Well isn't that the mark of a great company?

Hawken Digital Comic Provides Beta Keys More beta keys arrive for Hawken.

Origin Account Breaching Reported; EA Denies Account Breaching Origin hasn't been hacked, just like Battle.net wasn't hacked.

Mass Effect 3 Omega DLC Screenshot Reveals Nyreen Grab another look at one of the ne wplayable characters in Mass Effect 3.

Call of Duty 10 Is Modern Warfare 4? More hints surface for what could be Activision's next entry in the long running FPS series.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Now Free-to-Play Square's new online service makes it possible to play the Guardian of Light without putting any money into the game.

Distance, Nitronic Rush Sequel Hits Kickstarter Goal The sequel to one of the most challenging arcade racers has secured funding.

Blizzard Admits Linux Users Was Wrong Banned, Offers Refund Uh oh, it looks like Blizzard got caught with their schlong in the wind.

DMC Demo Leaps Onto Consoles November 20th You can finally play emo Dante ! All you have to do is wait until next week.

Thursday

Spike TV's VGA Nominees Announced, Halo 4, Borderlands 2 Lead The Way The biggest games lead the way for Spike's annual award show.

Tritton Kunai Headsets Arrive For Nintendo 3DS, Wii U A brand new headset becomes available for Nintendo's latest console.

Xbox Live Celebrates 10 Years With Games and Giveaways Microsoft throws out some new content for Xbox Live subscribers to celebrate 10 years of online console gaming.

GTA Vice City No Longer on Steam Due To RIAA Copyright Claim Some issues in licensing prevents Rockstar from selling the game digitally.

StarForge Hits IndieGoGo Goal One of the coolest upcoming games manages to hit its goals on IndieGoGo.

Kat Graves Become First PlayStation All-Stars DLC Fighter A slightly unknown and unlikely character becomes the first DLC addition to the PlayStation exclusive fighting game.

Tom Hard to Play Sam Fisher In Splinter Cell Film Does he fit the 50 year old espionage spy? Uhhh...sure. >_>

Bastion Now Available For iPhones, iPod Touch One of the coolest indie games makes its way to mobile phones.

Skyrim Dragonborn Screenshots Depict Solstheim, Ash Spawn Fans of the old Elder Scrolls titles will get a nice whiff of nostalgia with some new screenshots of Dragonborn.

Friday

Jagged Alliance 2 Wildfire Devs Refuse To Fix Game Until They're Paid Oh you naughty, naughty publisher.

Six Games Delisted From Xbox Live Arcade It's actually more than six, but hopefully there's some way to get these games back.

Boderlands 2 Mr. Torgue DLC Release Date, Features Revealed Find out what Gearbox is pumping into the latest set of DLC for Borderlands 2.

CryEngine 3 SDK Adds A Number Of New Features All useful for designing stuff, if that's what you're into. Otherwise, move along...

3DS Sells Like Crazy In Japan, Nears PS3 Lifetime Sales Nintendo's new handheld that got off to a rocky start is now nearing the total lifetime sales of the PS3.

Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge Momiji DLC Confirmed The game will be receiving additional DLC to help flesh out the overall playability.

Fuse Offers Up Pre-Order Bonuses EA rolls out the pre-order bonuses for the upcoming FPS from Insomniac Games.

Saturday

PlayStation 3 Vita Get's Black Friday Bundle Discounts Grab a PS3 and/or Vita with a few games for a budget price.

In-Depth Review Forza Horizon Find out how well Microsoft and Turn 10's latest racer holds up.

Primal Carnage Get Free Skins, Mode, Map The dino shooter gets some new content shortly after release, including new skins, a new mode and a brand new map.

Wonderbook Book of Spells Arrives on PlayStation 3 Better known as the game that completely failed during Sony's E3 live presentation, Wonderbook is currently available.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Earns $500 Million In One Day Congrats Activision...you're half-way to Call of Duty's annual intake of $1 billion.

Pid Co-op Review How well does the newest, artistic new platformer hold up in co-op? Get the complete rundown courtesy of Co-Optimus.

That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. As usual, we round out the week with a final trailer and what better trailer to close things out with in this recap than the trailer that has everyone stoked to the point of nearly blowing their load every time they watch it? That's right, I'm talking about the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, enjoy.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.