E3 2012 is a great opportunity for Sony to drive home the point that its sizeable collection of upcoming exclusives is reason enough to own a PlayStation 3 or PS Vita. With titles like The Last of Us, God of War: Ascension and LittleBigPlanet Vita on the horizon, Sony is likely to draw attention to its first-party line-up while also highlighting third-party support from companies such as Activision, who will be releasing Call of Duty Vita later this year.

Continue reading El33tonline’s Editorial: E3 2012 - Expectations and predictions for Sony.

A team from El33tonline will be making the long trek to Los Angeles, California for E3 next week. We have a busy schedule of press conferences, presentations and interviews lined-up, and will be bringing you news and pictures live from the event during the week of the 4th to the 7th of June.

And while just three members of the El33t team will be making that trip, the rest of the team will also be following the news from E3 very carefully. Each one of us has their own hopes and dreams of what we’d like to see at the show, and we thought we’d share ‘What we hope to see, what we dream to be’ with you below.

Continue reading the editorial E3 2012: What we hope to see, what we dream to be.

The PS Vita has been available worldwide for just over two months now and all the pre-launch hype that surrounded it has died down considerably by this point. Although the Vita had an amazing launch line-up comprising over twenty titles, there hasn’t been much new software to speak of during the last couple of months and one can sense that the Vita user base is growing more impatient with each passing week.

Sales of PS Vita aren’t as healthy as Sony would have hoped for. In Japan the Vita has sold just 667 877 units since it launched there in December last year, with first week sales accounting for almost half this figure.

From what I’ve read, Vita sales are not much better in Europe and the system lags behind the 3DS in most territories, including North America. This trend looks set to continue unless Sony drops the price of Vita to less than $200 and brings out the big guns at E3 in June.

Continue reading El33tonline’s Editorial: PS Vita Coverage Round-up: Facts, Opinions and Predictions

As a gamer, I sometimes wonder how we become gamers.

What identifies us as gamers, what gives us our motivation, what turned the switch in our brains that turned us into game fanatics? Many argue that everyone likes games but, in my experience, this is simply not true. In fact, I work with a group of people who look down on my hobby and passion and often have words to me about it, scoffing at me “wasting my time.” Their golfing / walking / gardening / drinking aside (talk about a waste of time!), I think I am entitled to choose for myself how to entertain myself.

So with this in mind, I decided to sit down and chart my progression as a gamer and identify key moments in my life that made me the gamer I am today. I thought I would also ask around and see if there is a common thread in this and, if so, whether this was triggered by specific games.

Continue reading El33tonline’s editorial: Games That Changed Us: A trip down memory lane with Russell, Bryan and Oltman

I’ve been aware just how cynical and hard to please the videogame crowd (present company mostly excluded) is for a while now. Since becoming a member of the industry as a journalist and being a gamer myself, this awareness has deepened into an understanding of sorts.

When you’re a gamer I believe it’s easy to be critical of developers for two reasons. Firstly, games are not cheap, you’ve spent your hard earned cash on this title and you feel you have the right to complain if you’re not happy. Secondly, you’re probably quite isolated from game development, you may have watched developer interviews, read about games and even feel you’re qualified because you play games, but the reality is that you’re pretty far removed because you’ve never actually met the developers.

Continue reading El33tonline’s Editorial: Developers are gamers at heart - insight into a few things we should keep in mind.

The videogame world has been waiting for this week with great anticipation and now, today, fans of action, sci-fi, spell-binding storytelling, mindbogglingly rich universes and, of course, space, will finally be able to experience the latest epic accomplishment from BioWare: Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 3 is arguably BioWare’s most important and exciting videogame release ever, representing the third and final chapter in a trilogy charting the adventures of Commander Shepard - a trilogy that began in November 2007 and has bridged genre gaps while accruing an incredible fanbase.

As we eagerly await the chance to play BioWare’s latest opus, join us as we take a trip down memory lane and track the journey of Mass Effect 3, from reveal to release:

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Do you want game trailers? Do you want tons of El33tonline editorials and features? How about some reviews, previews and exciting announcements? Then cast your minds back to last week when we pasted up vast collections of all of these things, plus more, and look over our round-up of videogame news for the week ending February 5th!

Of course, you can look forward to more of this content this week, too, but just in case you missed any of it, here’s what happened last week:

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It is no secret that I quite adore The Sims. Yes, I groan every time a new expansion is released, but I have to keep up the appearance of a serious games reviewer. And The Sims just does not bode well for a gamer of my caliber.

But the problem with that is the fact that The Sims are simply too addictive to overlook. And if you look at the sales figures for The Sims I can take comfort in knowing I am most certainly not alone in this!

Continue reading El33tonline’s Editorial: 7 Deadly Sims.

2012 promises to be another busy year in the videogame industry. You just have to take a look at El33tonline’s Great Big Release List of 2012 to know just how many great titles we’re looking forward to this year.

To kick 2012 off properly we asked the El33tonline Team what their most anticipated games of 2012 are, and you can read what’s on our Top 10 list of 2012 so far below. We’d love to know what you are saving your pennies for as well, so let us know what you’re most looking forward to in the comments section below.

Continue reading The El33t Team’s Top 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2012.

2011 has come and gone, but that’s not to say that we’ve forgotten the games that the industry gifted to us during the past 12 months. In fact many of us are still playing these titles with our friends online, and many more are still eagerly waiting to play these titles, they’re either sitting on our wishlist or in our backlog as we struggle to find more gaming time.

Let’s take a look at what titles found a special place on the El33tonline team’s gaming shelf in 2011. You’re sure to spot a few of your own favourites too, so feel free to let us know which were your top games of 2011 in the comments section below.

Continue reading The El33t Team’s Top 10 Games of 2011.

Did you think 2011 was jam-packed with fantastic videogames? Were you unable to keep up with the pace of releases due to time and budget constraints? Then we’ve got some bad news for you: The 2012 videogame release slate is going to be just as manic as 2011 with titles that promise to be just as spectacular as the best that last year could throw at us!

El33tonline has compiled a wonderfully huge list of games due for release in 2012, split up into monthly and weekly release windows. We’ve also included a healthy (READ: Overwhelming) list of games that don’t have set release dates just yet, but are still expected to launch in 2012.

Continue reading this El33tonline editorial, The Games of 2012: El33tonline’s Great Big Release List.

I hope you’re ready for some more history, because it’s time again to bend our minds to understanding where RPGs have come from, and possibly posit where they’re going.

When last we left off, we had just finished off the Western-end of the iconic year of 1997, so let us go back and see what was happening in the East in the meantime before we pick up the Western strands again.

Continue reading El33tonline’s editorial by guest writer Fayyaad, A complete history of role-playing videogames: Part 4.

Of course we all know that playing videogames with a couple of friends is the best way to spend a Saturday night, and over the years we have swatted, strummed and sang into the wee hours of many a Sunday morning.

So I’ve made this list of my Top 10 Party Games (in no particular order) to help you plan your next big shin-dig, and perhaps even bring something new to your gaming shelf.

Continue reading this editorial, Lisa’s List of Top Ten Party Games.

Hot dang, the world of videogames has been shunted into 2012! The usually ‘quiet’ beginning period of the year has already seen a torrent of news and El33tonline has been keeping up the pace, with features of our own to complement the deluge.

And we’re only just getting started.

After a successful and highly enjoyable meeting of Durban gamers this past weekend, and ahead of another busy week with events in Johannesburg and Cape Town as well as another wave of game announcements, let’s catch up on the week of January 15th with El33tonline’s round-up of videogame news:

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For the very first week of 2012, there was an inordinate amount of interesting news in the videogame world with full game announcements, at least one delay and a good collection of screenshots and trailers making their way out into the wild.

El33tonline did its part to inject some excitement into proceedings with a smattering of features and reviews, acting as the tiniest of tastes of things to come. The tiniest.

What were some of the most exciting and important things to happen in videogames this past week? Let’s take a look:

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