Weekly Recap June 23rd: Gamers Defeat EA, Australia Gets Mature, FTC Vs Blizzard

This was a really, really sorry week for Electronic Arts, because the one thing happened that they feared most: their stock dropped. Well, it wasn't that it just dropped but the company is reeling from week after week of bad publicity and now they're having to deal with poor stock valuation. In other words, gamers have finally defeated EA. Australia finally enters the 21st century after years and years and years of denying games that exceeded the R15+ rating and starting January 1st, 2013, Aussies will finally be able to play some good 'ole fashioned R18+ titles. And last but not least, Blizzard has had to answer to the Korean FTC and are forced to give gamers refunds over Diablo III. These stories and more in this June 23rd, 2012 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.

Sunday

Aliens Colonial Marines Screenshots Feature Heavy Corridors Check out some corridor shooting for the upcoming Aliens-based Gearbox game.

Assassin's Creed T-Shirts Feature Tomahawk Puzzle Even on a t-shirt there's something to solve for Assassin's Creed.

Diablo 3 Got You Peeved? Keep An Eye On Grim Dawn If you can't get your ARPG fix from Diablo 3 you can at least get it from Grim Dawn.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Zombie Modes Are Competitive Too It's a lot like that MOFPS, Karma: Operation Barbarossa.

Assassin's Creed 3 Screenshots Brutalize Redcoats One of the most anticipated games coming out this year offers up some more screenshots.

Forza Motorsport 4 2013 SRT Viper DLC Coming June 22nd If you really want the latest 2012 Viper SRT in Forza 4, you can pay a little extra for it by the end of the month.

Far Cry 3 Screenshots Celebrate Father's Day In A Violent Fashion A nice cache of violent new Far Cry 3 screenshots.

Twilight Zone, Pinball Arcade A Kickstarter Success Congratulations to everyone who contributed their hard earned dollar bills to bring this project to life.

Tynon Mixes Fantasy RPG/City Building For Facebook And Browsers This Summer A new game where you can adventure and city build with friends.

Monday

Ground Branch, Tactical Shooter That Isn't Call of Duty. It's having a tough time securing funding, too.

TimeSplitters 4 Possible If Facebook Page Reaches 1000,000 Fans Come on, do your part guys...do your part!

Blizzard, Can We Please Have An Offline Mode For Diablo 3? Please...Blizzard...please?

Grand Theft Auto Red Dead May Never Come To Wii U Hard as that may be, it's just something Wii U owners may have to live with.

Pong Indie Developer Challenge Submissions Hit YouTube A collection of independent imitations of Pong from various designers.

It's Official: Australia Finally Getting R18+ Rating All those banned video games you Aussie's couldn't play before because they were deemed "too mature", well now you can play them! Although, that still doesn't fix your over-inflated pricing issue, but that's a battle for another day.

No Man's Land Invades PlayStation Home A new freemium title makes its debut on PSN.

EA Backtracks on Steam Discount Comments Origin Has 87% Off Sale Love how you're not cheapening your IP's EA.

Heroes & Generals Update Fixes The Curse Of Rambo No more LMG hip-firing for your FPS fans.

Anarchy Reigns Western Release Scheduled For 2013 The fighting game brawler gets pushed back to next year.

SteelSeries Pink Siberia V2 Headset Now Available Help fight breast cancer by buying this pink SteelSeries gaming headset.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online Closed Beta Returns Get into the beta for the latest Ghost Recon from Ubisoft.

Why People Hate EA? Ten Simple Reasons They really are simple.

Tuesday

God of War Ascension Collector Edition Now Up For Pre-order Through Amazon

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Will Have Dedicated Servers Good news for PC gamers...dedicated servers are returning.

Unity 4 Pre-Orders Available, Features Microtransaction Asset Store The next-iteration of the Unity Engine actually puts it in the big leagues, competing with the likes of Unreal Engine 4 and CryEngine.

Zynga Slots Available, Free For iOS Devices Zynga was nice enough to give gamers a free mobile title. Give them a round of applause.

Okami HD Beautifies PlayStation Network This Fall If you didn't grab the game when it came out for the Wii or when it came out for the PlayStation 2, maybe it's time to give Clover Studios' Okami a bit of a gander on the PS3.

Strikefleet Omega Sets Course To Mobile A new space-adventure, arcade-strategy game arrives for mobile devices. Try saying that ten times fast.

Team Ninja Not Adding DLC Fighters To Dead Or Alive 5 The head honcho at Team Ninja speaks candidly about not screwing gamers over. I can get onboard with that.

Vampire Season Brings Monstrous Tower Defense To iOS On June 28th If you enjoy playing tower defense games and you enjoy mobile phones, why not combine the two and create an epic, tower-defense mobile adventure? Just don't do so while crossing the street. It's potentially bad for your health...well, that's what non-dead people say.

CD Projekt Would Make A Single-Player Offline Mode For Diablo 3 Yeah, they support the cause!

Diablo 3 Consumer Mistreatment Proves Gaming Needs A Watchdog Someone who looks out for gamers and isn't afraid to speak out above the shady business practices of the gaming industry.

Wednesday

THQ Gets Hit With Class Aciont Lawsuit, Casual Gaming Fails This is one of the dumbest lawsuits ever. I'm not going to spoil it for you. Just check it out for yourself.

Afterglow Headsets, Controllers Incoming For Xbox 360, PS3, PC These are some of the coolest looking peripherals ever! Check them out for yourself.

RAGE Scorchers Might Be DLC Could Bethesda still have plans to keep RAGE alive? Check it out and judge for yourself.

Beyond Good & Evil HD From Dust Outland Bundle Spotted On Amazon A nice bundle of awesome highly rated games are available in a bundle on Amazon. Grab it while it's hot.

Receiver, An Interesting Mix of Mirror's Edge and Amnesia It's definitely different and it's hard to argue otherwise.

Penny Arcade Adventures 3 Delayed For Xbox 360 This game is looking really cool and shaping up to be an instant modern-day classic.

Orcs Must Die 2 Release Date Confirmed The game is scheduled to arrive sooner rather than later.

Saints Row 4 Absorbs Enter The Dmoinatrix Instead of making the expansion for the third game, THQ is smartly adding it into the fourth game.

Sang-Froid Tales of Werewolves Coming This Summer A game about werewolf hunting using tower-defense and third-person action. Count me in.

Full Tomb Raider Demo To Air On GTTV The full demo that caused all that controversy over a statement that included the word "rape" will be aired on GTTV. Put the kids to bed, folks.

Valve Gives Schools Free Copies of Portal 2 To Help Teach Physics A super awesome good deed from Valve to help kids learn about math and science.

Shroud Comes To Unity, Brings Dynamic Cloth Simulation With It All that fancy clothing physics you see in those AAA titles? Well, now you can have them in your basement-budget game, too!

Thursday

Train Simulator 2012 Gets Steam Workshop Excellent for those virtual conductors who like modding their trains to go 1,000 kmh.

Gears of War Designer: Games Have Become Linear, Easier Cliffy B., rails on today's generic, casual action titles. Surprised? I'm not.

Blizzard Forced To Give Koreans Refunds For Diablo 3 The FTC finally steps in to Blizzard a face full of pro-consumerism.

Amazing Spider-Man Features Bruce Campbell As Extreme Reporter Brucie boy steps back into the spotlight, but sadly it's not for the upcoming movie.

CD Projekt Says Gaming Is All About Delivering Value To Consumers It's a complete antithesis of what EA is doing right now.

Assetto Corsa Lotus Screenshots Feature Lotus Evora Brand new shots of the sexy new Lotus Evora is showcased.

Plants Vs Zombies DLC Announced For Sims 3 Supernatural Hello, some DLC for an expansion pack. Awesome right?

EA's Stock Plummets That simple sentence has caused gamers to cheer and rejoice the interwebz around.

Upgrading Diablo 3 To Full Edition Can Take Three Days This is one of the most ridiculous stipulations that legit consumers have to suffer through with buying a digital copy of Diablo 3.

Final Fantasy 7 Returning To PC With New Features This is awesome news for any fans of one of the most beloved outings of the Final Fantasy series.

Friday

Hitman Absolution Screenshot Attacks The Club Check out some rocking new screenshots of Hitman Absolution.

StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm Won't Have LAN Support Because of Piracy No patching it in either, so says Her Dictator, Blizzard.

Trackball Controller Heads To Kickstarter If you want to support a controller with a trackball for precision aiming then here's your chance.

Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut Release Date, Details Announced All of you willing to undergo a much more improved, extended ending will be able to do so starting June 26th.

Waren Story Closed Beta Underway You can join the CBT of Aeria Games' latest action-oriented MMORPG.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Becomes A Fake Video Game Even though it's fake the game looks pretty kickbutt.

My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop Games Being Developed For Mobile Roll out that pink badarse mofo horse and kick the royal crap out of all the evil doers of the planet. Nah, you just do pink stuff with a pink pony in My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop.

Sine Mora Bend Time PlayStation Network After making waves on the Xbox Live Arcade, the game will now be arriving on the PS3's PlayStation Network.

Saturday

Nintendo 3DS XL Arriving August A new 3DS is on the way and it will be arriving just before summer ends.

Razer Taipan And Synapse 2.0 Review Check out a fully detailed breakdown of the new peripherals from Razer and how well they operate in today's gaming atmosphere.

Cold Fusion: Cyber-Steam-Punk RPG With A Hint of Nostalgia A throwback to classic storytelling and gaming with a bit of a modern twist.

Babel Rising co-op Review How well does this tower-building co-op game work out? Co-Optimus gives a full review breakdown.

Cubemen Gets Multiplayer Update, Discount A new update has been added to give gamers a more well-rounded experience and in addition to this new gamers can pick the game up at a discounted rate.

Microsoft Releases Smartglass Dev Kit We'll be seeing a heck of a lot more Smartglass gaming material in the upcoming future.

Monster Paradise Being Ported To English Speaking Regions Aeria Games' card battling game picks up enough popularity to land on Stateside marketplaces.

Journey Collector Edition Sliding Into Retail One of the most celebrated and artistic games this generation will be available at retail for those who aren't savvy about digital downloads.

We wrap up this edition of the Weekly Recap with a near 11 minute video of the upcoming game from Square-Enix, Dragon Quest X for the Wii and Wii U. Enjoy.