Halo’s 1-3 are pretty much a series of games that defined the Xbox, and allowed it to grow. Culminating with a third core title on the Xbox 360, we thought that we’d seen the last of Master-Chief.

Halo ODST, Reach, and the catholic spin-off, Halo Preach have filled the Covenant killing void in recent years, with Microsoft announcing at E3 last year that Halo 4 was in the works, as part of a new cycle that they have dubbed, “The Reclaimer Trilogy”.

It’s a bold plan, one that will presumably stretch once again over gaming platforms, as 343 Industries spoke about how the next trilogy was mapped out over ten years.

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Dragon Age Origins, the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate (without the IP attached to it, unfortunately), was a pleasant surprise for me. Sure, it was a Bioware game and I should have expected it to be awesome – but I hadn’t. Conversely,  I expected Dragon Age 2 to be life-changing – and all it changed was my opinion of Bioware. It wasn’t necessarily a bad game, just an uninspired one, far removed from the sort of magic you expect from Bioware’s pedigree.

Bioware’s realised that it upset fans – and now wants fan feedback on how to proceed with the next game in the series.

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In what I feel is slightly overdue but still a most welcome move the team over at Blizzard have issued an official apology for the server issues that have plagued Diablo 3 since it’s launch.

In short they admit they miscalculated how much server power would be required and are currently adding more power and optimising the backend to help deal with the onslaught.

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A mere two days ago I reported on Activision paying our over $43 million to the “Infinity Ward Employee Group” that it had wrongly been holding back and now today Activision has reached an out of court settlement with EA over their $400 million lawsuit.

Unfortunately the details of the settlement are being withheld but it has been revealed that this settlement does not settle the other court case that Activision and Jason West and Vince Zampella are involved in that is due to be heard in court on the 29th of May

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Earlier this month, Microsoft registered a handful of domains related to something called “Halo Infinity.” While obviously related to their big, exclusive space shooter, Microsoft remained mum on just what Halo Infinity is.

“Microsoft often acquires various domain names as part of its ongoing business strategy, but beyond that we have no comment,” they said. Now, thanks to the magic of an embargoed press release (which means you could be reading this news at just about every online gaming media outlet in the universe) we finally know what it is.

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Man, can you believe that it’s Wednesday already? The week, as usual, has flown by with blistering speed, with hump day pretty much down for the count. Friday is almost here, along with one of my eagerly anticipated titles of the year, Max Payne 3.

I’m curious to see if Rockstar has been able to expand upon and improve what came before it in the first two games. Although with my bad Chuck-Luck, I’m anticipating that the moment I put the game in my console, either the power will go off, or I’ll be hit by a meteorite. Or perhaps both.

In Other News: Conan the Barbarian is on Facebook now, a certain messenger with parkour skills hints at a return, and Orlando Bloom is going to kill you with kindness and several harmful drugs.

Here’s the news that we didn’t post, because we were too busy with our stolen copper wire criminal syndicate gigs.

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It’s not often that we can play a game, and just be genuinely astonished. Sure, most titles are fun and great when you need a time-sink, but every now and again, there comes a game that just sets new benchmarks in the field, whether it be graphics, gameplay or innovation.

We’re taking a look at five such games today.

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In the name of King Leoric-before-his-fall I greet you, fortune hunter. Let me not play coy with tongue and words: if you are reading this, I am most likely no more. My only wish is that my soul has been allowed to shuffle off this mortal coil, and currently does not find itself as etheric sustenance for fire-eyed demons.

I have left this journal as a recounting of my… I hesitate to say adventures, for though they started as such, verily that is not how they ended. But for the sake of propriety lets call them as such and be done with it.

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The last Ghost Recon: Future Soldier promotional is probably one of the worst bits of misplaced video game marketing I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. I love boobs as much as the next guy, but that nonsense was a great example of trying to hammer a square peg in to a circular hole. Thankfully, Ubisoft seems to have come to its senses, as this, the game’s launch trailer is much, much better.

Mostly because it actually has something to do with Ghost Recon.

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I rather enjoyed Darksiders. It had its problems, and was accused of being derivative, but  I loved playing a more grown-up Zelda-styled game. Naturally, I’ve been looking forward to to its sequel featuring Death (that’s with a capital “D”) instead of War – and was more than a little bummed when THQ announced that it would be delayed.

Originally scheduled to release next month, THQ later said the game would be out on August 21 this year. Soon afterwards, they retracted that , saying it’ll be out when it’s done. With THQ’s financial woes they need a hit – and Darksiders II could be it.

So when it’s coming?

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I really like Capcom’s crossover collaboration,. Street fighter X Tekken. It’s a deceptively complex, fun little fighter, held together with some genuine innovation. It hasn’t performed quite as well at retail as Capcom would’ve liked though – selling short of the company’s expectations and moving just 1.6 million units worldwide since its launch.

Why? Too many fighting games in too short a time, says Capcom.

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Call of Duty is as much of an end of year annual tradition as Christmas is lately, and the gaming industry just wouldn’t feel the same without some announcement of the popular franchise, every year.

Love it or hate it, the game is here to stay, thanks largely to its success in creating some thrilling online and offline action. One key factor in bringing out a regular COD game every year, is that the various studios have a decent graphical engine to work with, an engine that is tweaked for each new release.

It’s getting a little long in the tooth now though, and is in sore need of a major upgrade, something that current Black Ops 2 developer and Treyarch head Mark Lamia agrees with.

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Yesterday we posted up the article about how the Diablo 3 launch has been marred by their server collapse and unsurprisingly Blizzard are not enjoying hearing about how the most anticipated title of the year isn’t being enjoyed by all that pre-ordered it.

In our article Geoff mentioned that he believes the main reason that you have to have that constant Internet connection is for DRM and anti-piracy reasons, however that is being strongly denied by Blizzard.

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Those Angry Birds are back, and they’re still angry. The green pigs are also smugger than ever before. I can understand why the Birds are so livid. As if you needed an excuse to wipe those smug grins off their piggy faces, Angry Birds Space is here to fill the void. If you’re new to the Angry Birds franchise, there’s plenty of flavours available, on PC and various phones and tablets, as well as demo versions for you to try.

So far, all the Angry Birds games have followed the same premise, even though the level design has been given a certain theme, all have been based in a world with uniform gravity.

Angry Birds Space changes all that.

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