GAME OF THRONES 'No Mercy' trailer

HBO have released another big trailer for the third season of Game of Thrones. Interesting that they decided to pack these trailers into a short period of time rather than release them over a longer period and get the build-up going earlier.

This trailer is a bit longer and gives us more of a look at new characters like Daario.

New GAME OF THRONES trailers for Season 3

This one is about war:

And this one is about 'the beast':

Season 3 begins airing on 31 March in the USA and the day afterwards in the UK.

Extended GAME OF THRONES Season 3 Trailer

HBO have released an extended version of last week's Game of Thrones trailer. This version contains a few more shots and some additional dialogue, as well as glimpses of more characters (established and new). Look out for Paul Kaye as Thoros of Myr intoning the R'hllor speech and our first glimpse of the 'bear and maiden fair':

New GAME OF THRONES trailer

HBO have finally released a 'proper' trailer for Season 3 of Game of Thrones:

The trailer has a lot of great bits in it, but my favourites were our first proper look at Dragonstone in the daylight:

And this shot of Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) climbing the Wall is quite impressive:

Meanwhile, Entertainment Weekly has reported that the second season has sold more than 241,000 copies on its first day on sale in the USA, a 44% increase on the first season. More than 350,000 episodes were also bought from digital vendors, more than twice that of the first season. This bodes well for the Season 4 renewal (which is expected after the first few episodes of Season 3 airs, but pre-production has already started).

First WASTELAND 2 gameplay video

inXile have released the first gameplay video for their upcoming, Kickstarter-funded, retro-RPG, Wasteland 2.

Wasteland 2 is a stand-alone sequel to the original, released, way back in 1988. The new game features similar turn-based combat and text-based descriptions of events, but also a vastly more advanced graphics engine based on 3D models. It'll be interesting to see how this old-school style of gaming resonates with modern audiences, but there's a lot here that looks promising (particularly the fully-customisable UI). The game is due for release at the end of the year.

Trailers: ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE & SC2: HEART OF THE SWARM

Bethesda and Blizzard have released trailers for their upcoming games The Elder Scrolls Online and StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Both trailers are unfortunately just CGI 'flavour' trailers rather than showing any gameplay.

First up is The Elder Scrolls Online, which takes the Elder Scrolls universe into the MMORPG realm. Set a thousand years before the events of Skyrim, the game will feature the entire continent of Tamriel (including locations already familiar to players of Skyrim and Oblivion) and will focus on a three-way war for control of the continent:

Second is StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. The long-awaited expansion to StarCraft 2 itself, Heart of the Swarm focuses on the Zerg species and adds RPG elements to the strategy game. The trailer features most of the opening cinematic to the game, apparently:

No release date has been set for The Elder Scrolls Online, whilst StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will be released on PC on 13 March.

CDProjekt on CYBERPUNK 2077 and THE WITCHER 3

CDProjekt have released a CGI trailer for their upcoming SF RPG, Cyberpunk 2077 (based on the classic 1980s pen-and-paper RPG, Cyberpunk). It features lots of bullets and a woman in unseasonal garb:

Meanwhile, CDProjekt have also revealed that they have another game much closer to release and that everyone can guess what it is. There'll be more on this - almost certainly The Witcher 3 - next month.

GAME OF THRONES Season 3 preview

HBO has aired a preview of the third season of Game of Thrones, which will start airing on 31 March 2013.

The video gives us our first good glimpse at a number of new characters in costume and make-up (screencaps from Westeros.org):

Clive Russell as Ser Brynden 'the Blackfish' Tully, Catelyn's uncle.

 Tobias Menzies as Ser Edmure Tully, Catelyn's younger brother and heir to Riverrun.

Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei, a translator from Astapor.

Dame Diana Rigg as Lady Olenna Tyrell, the 'Queen of Thorns'.

Richard Dormer as Ser Beric Donarrion (replacing David Michael Scott, who played the character in one episode of Season 1).

Ellie Kendrick as Meera Reed, whose father was one of Ned Stark's oldest and closest friends.

Another shot of Meera, this time with her brother Jojen, played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster.

Looking pretty good so far. The promos also confirm that, after a lot of hand-wringing last season, Daenerys looks like she'll be kicking some backside this year. Also, what appears to be the set-up for a wedding or celebration. Interesting stuff.

GAME OF THRONES Season 3 teaser

A teaser trailer for Season 3 of Game of Thrones.

I believe the voice-over is by Tara Fitzgerald, who is playing the role of Selyse Baratheon.

Trailer for RED DWARF X

The first trailer for the tenth season of Red Dwarf has been released:

Red Dwarf was a hugely successful SF sitcom, airing on the BBC in six seasons from 1988 to 1993 and returning for two more seasons in 1997 and 1999. After a lengthy period trying to get a feature film version commissioned, co-creator Doug Naylor wrote a three-episode mini-series (which has now effectively been retconned as the ninth season) in 2009 for the British cable channel Dave. Although critically panned, the mini-series got very high ratings, smashing all previous records for the channel. Dave subsequently commissioned a six-episode full season, shot in December-January 2011-12 and due for airing in the autumn.

Will it be any good? The omens are not great. Red Dwarf was dealt a serious blow when co-creator and co-writer Rob Grant left the series following the filming of the sixth season. It never really recovered from it. The seventh and eighth season had a few decent moments, but overall were pale shadows of their former selves (despite relatively big budgets and use of CGI, which some fans suggested may have contributed to the problems). The Back to Earth mini-series was even worse still.

However, for this new season there are some signs of hope. Limited funds mean that they have to make more use of the classic format of the four guys hanging out on the ship and getting into weird scrapes. They are also acknowledging the ageing of the characters rather than ignoring it, which is good, and the actors seem to have retained their old chemistry.

Trailer for the new JUDGE DREDD movie

A trailer for the upcoming Judge Dredd film, Dredd, has been released. The film sees Judge Dredd taking on rookie Judge Anderson for training, only for both to become trapped in a 200-floor vertical slum ruled by a ruthless drug lord. The setting is Mega-City One, a vast megalopolis of 800 million people stretching down North America's eastern seaboard.

The film is set for release in the UK on 7 September 2012 and in the USA on 21 September. Karl Urban stars as Judge Dredd and Olivia Thirlby as Psi-Division Judge Anderson, with Lena Headey as the main villain, Madeline Madrigal (aka 'Ma-Ma'). The film was shot in South Africa with a budget of $45 million. It'll be in 3D (grumble) and has been R-rated in the United States.

First impressions: looks reasonable (backed up by some solid early reviews). Thirlby, Urban and Headey all look good, the costumes and sets look decent and the whole thing certainly looks more promising than the disappointing 1995 Stallone movie. However, the depiction of Mega-City One looks dull. The Stallone movie did have an impactful visual style that worked very well. This version looks fairly generic in comparison.

Before anyone asks, yes, Dredd keeps his helmet on for the duration.

FINAL FANTASY VII due for PC re-release

Square Enix have confirmed that they are re-releasing Final Fantasy VII on the PC 'soon'.

Before anyone gets too excited, this is a simple re-issuing of the 1998 PC port of Final Fantasy VII, updated to work with modern PCs. There have been no graphical updates (beyond the fact that the original PC version had higher-resolution 3D models than the PlayStation version anyway). There is also no word on if the original game's two biggest problems - a subpar English translation and unskippable, lengthy cut scenes - have been addressed. According to the website, the character many Europeans and Americans know as 'Aeris' has had her original Japanese name of 'Aerith' reinstated, however (this change did make it into some Western reissues of the original game as well).

There's been rumours for a while that Square was looking at reissuing Final Fantasy VII and VIII (the only two to be ported to the PC, aside from the multiplayer XI and XIV), initially through Steam. The current press release confirms that the re-release of VII will be through Square's own online distribution platform.

Interesting news. If the cut scene problem has been fixed - I have no wish to sit through Sephiroth's Supernova spell (the animation for which lasts for 2 minutes and 20 seconds) twenty times in rapid succession ever again - than this will be worthwhile.

ROME II confirmed and looking impressive

Following last week's leaks, the Creative Assembly have confirmed that their next game will be Total War: Rome II.

Details on the game are still somewhat sparse, but we know that the game will feature some serious graphical improvements over the previous titles in the series and, after the tight focus of Shogun 2, will be again opting for a sprawling, epic scale. This time around the game will cover all of Europe, extending further east than the original Rome: Total War map, although it will again feature many of the same factions. Whether the Roman faction will be split between three families as before has not yet been confirmed. Creative Assembly have said that the game is their biggest project to date, requiring a budget 40% larger than their biggest previous game.

The battle engine, although based on the same Warscape technology that every Total War title since Empire has employed, has received some serious upgrades. Combined-arms land-and-sea battles have been retained, but now expanded in scope for assaults on harbour cities. The above screenshot depicts the Roman fleet assaulting Carthage's harbour, whilst below shows ground forces attacking the city centre. Cities are now absolutely massive, with numerous 'points of control' that have to be secured to ensure the city's surrender. The old trick of racing to the city square and holding it for a couple of minutes is no longer possible, in a sop to both realism and the computer's AI (which used to either make the city square near-impregnable or simply abandon it for no good reason).

The Creative Assembly are also expanding the game's graphics and animation, with soldiers in units whose morale is slipping now reacting more noticeably, perhaps panicking or showing fear on their faces. Another major change is the addition of characters, people like Scipio or Cicero whose presence will affect the way affairs unfold (and perhaps make assassinations more necessary to proceed).

Total War: Rome II will be released for the PC in the latter half of 2013, er, sorry, MMXIII.

First COMPANY OF HEROES 2 trailer

At this moment, Company of Heroes 2 is my most eagerly-awaited game of 2013. Here's the first teaser trailer, which shows very little in the way of gameplay but does impress with its depiction of the Eastern Front of WW2 being considerably vaster than the western in scale, casualties and strategic importance.

Dungeons and Dragons 3 movie trailer

A trailer has been released for the third movie based on the Dungeons and Dragons franchise. You may gaze upon it below, but I take absolutely no responsibility for anyone smashing their screens in horror at its quality:

The first film, simply entitled Dungeons and Dragons, was an famously rubbish, medium-budget movie released in 2000, starring Jeremy Irons, Thora Birch and Marlon Wayans. The sequel, Wrath of the Dragon God, was released in 2005 and was a near-zero budget movie starring absolutely no-one you've ever heard of. Whilst the first film was awful, it did have some basic watchability (due to the excellent 'down a pint every time Jeremy Irons either overacts or looks like part of his soul has died due to the dialogue' drinking game). The sequel was fifty times worse. If the trailer is accurate, the third will continue this decline in quality to hitherto unsuspected depths.

If you want to watch a decent D&D-based movie, I instead unreservedly recommend The Gamers II: Dorkness Rising, a very zero-budget indie movie made by fans with real talent and wit, and much more successfully nails what makes roleplaying games fun.