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Yesterday, Atlus sent a note to its fanclub, the so-called “Faithful,” promising to maintainDemon’s Souls‘ North American servers until at least March 2011. I suppose that youcouldplay it as a single-player game, but that’d bemissing the pointofDemon’s Souls‘ persistent not-quite-MMO presentation and feature set. When those servers finallydoshut down,Demon’s Soulswill automagically get more difficult: most of the games’ multiplayer components — the bloodstained messages, the ability to summon another player into your game — are designed to mitigate some the game’s crushing brutality....

According toDigital Battleinfo on the inevitable sequel to theBattlefieldseries —Battlefield 3— has been leaked via mysterious tipster. According to the tip, the game is scheduled to hit stores late next year with a possible public beta this coming summer and the usual teaser trailers hitting your local Internets in January. Of course, the list of features — which you can find after the jump — should be taken with a grain of salt until we get official confirmation from either EA or, let’s say, Jesus Christ, but everything here looks pretty plausible....

Bionic Commando Rearmed, Capcom’s Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network revamp of the classic 8-bit title, is nearing release, folks. But verify the kids are asleep — the game has received ratings in multiple territories, and it looks like the folks at Capcom/GRIN are pulling no punches: North America (ESRB) – MEurope (PEGI) – 18+Germany – 16Australia – MJapan – B That’s right,Bionic Command Rearmedas received mature ratings across the board....

The whole “Sorry guys, but the PC version ofBioShock 2isn’t getting patched or the Minerva’s Den and Protector Trials add-ons” thing didn’t exactly go over very well. Shocking, I know. 2K Games’ Elizabeth Tobey has an update, and it’s a good one. “We are a company of gamers making awesome experiences for gamers — and given the conversations we’ve had over the past two weeks, we’ve decided to go back and finish the PC patch and Protector Trials....

Codemasters’ Stuart Black, the creative director ofBodycount, feels that too many shooters suffer from shooting that’s, well, not all that good. Why? Because, he asserted, those games prioritize back-of-the-box bullet points (unique selling points, or USPs, as they’re known in the marketing world) — ancillary features such as running up walls, anti-gravity, and time travel — over the core shooting experience, which suffers as a result. “And it’s just unsatisfying. It doesn’t matter how cool those USPs are; when I [pull] the trigger,meh, not so much,” he scoffed....

Eww! I can’t look at it. Get it away. Take it far from here. Take it back to Russia, where it came from. MumboJumbo and Russobit-M/GFI have brought the popular indie gameBraidto Russia, saysKotaku, and this is what they made it look like. On one level it reeks of low budget NES-era generic rip-off box art, and on another level it has that just-slightly-off-but-you-can’t-figure-it-out vibe. His chin creeps me out....

It’s about that time of the week where we have an ill-informed opinion on the “dangers” of videogames from someone who is completely out-of-touch with reality. Enter Liberal Democrat Baroness Walmsley, who has thrown games and DVDs in with booze, weapons, gambling and drugs as one of the things that “destroy young lives.” “Knives, guns, certain games and DVDs, alcohol, solvents and gambling,” she argues, “are all very harmful and can destroy young minds and young lives....

Well isn’t this long over due? Sorry about that everyone, our bad. However, these last few months have seen plenty going on! DtoidUK became Dtoid Europe after we adopted a Dutch guy. DtoidEurope finally got a HQ as myself and Dan Seto decided to become roommates, which sadly saw us without Internet for over a month. We attended Eurogamer Expo in London and I celebrated my one year as Community Manager....

I can’t say I’m usually one to get excited over stuffed toys (unless they’re toucan related) but theseMario plushesare really quite awesome. The most interesting thing about this set is that it’s not just the usual suspects — characters like WaLuigi, Bowser Jr. and Wario have been given the cuddly treatment alongside the predictable Mario and Yoshi. I’ve not seen any information on whether we can get these outside of Japan, but I’m sure the usual import places will have them for sale....

EA Sports has announced that Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews (pronouncedtayvz) is the cover athlete forNHL 11, the latest entry in a franchise that has won 22 ‘sports game of the year’ awards over the last three years. Toews’ line-mate, right winger Patrick Kane, was theNHL 10coverboy; this is the first time that theNHLseries has featured players from the same team on the covers of consecutive games. But unlike the past two years,NHL 11won’t have separate cover athletes for different regions — Toews will appear on the cover of every copy of the game....

Arguably one of the most popular faces of the games industry, Epic’s Cliffy B, has recently shared his thoughts on the critically acclaimed, much beloved and Destructoid-approvedBioShockon his blog(be warned, there is a spoiler toward the end). Like almost everyone who isn’t theSony Defense Force, Cliff speaks very highly of 2K’s masterpiece, which he assures us has nothing to do with the fact it uses the Unreal Engine or that he knows some of the people who worked on it....

It’s been revealed thatShogun 2: Total Wardeveloper Creative Assembly is working on a new Aliens game. Details are sparse, but it’s been confirmed toRPSto be an action title, with the studio bumping up its employees considerably for the project. Amusingly, it wasn’t the game’s publisher, SEGA, that spilled the beans, but a British politician. Game supporter and UK Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey recently took a trip to Creative Assembly’s studio, and heTweetedthat the game was in the works....

Adam “I can rock handlebar mustaches” Dork has informed me thatDemon’s Soulsis a challenging and awesome game. He also likesTurok, so we’re going to take his advice with a grain of salt, but judging from what most people are saying about the game it is quite unforgiving in a wonderfully old school way. Even Atlus themselves, the game’s publisher in the US, is pushing the game as brutally hard. Why would someone make a game to punish the player over and over, other than to turn it into anawesome game mechanic?...