Strategy Informer  

American and European Yakuza fans rejoice because #3 is coming to our little continents in 2010, of which Sony are "especially delighted".

Oh and Australia too. Yakuza 3 "will be out March 2010" exclusively on PS3. It'll have "full English subtitling" accompanying the Japanese.

The PlayStation 3 Minis rumour has been confirmed, as the EU PS Blog reports that the latest PS3 software update will be available soon and it will make PSP Mini games playable on the PS3.

Any mini games that you purchase after 17th December will be available to download for both platforms, so you only have to purchase the game once in order for it to work on your PSP or PS3. Only games that you purchased before the 17th will need to be downloaded again to play on the PS3.

Finally, some real retro arcade line drawing arrives on the Xbox Live Arcade. Qix is basically all about lines, while avoiding the monster.

Simple and un-imaginative? Try saying that once you've played it, videogamer. It's from 80's Taito, so it'll own your soul if you let it.

Why has The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony not rocked the world? It's simple - GTAs "are so massive" that most don't finish.

That's Michael Pachter's radical thinking, that we get too much from Rockstar Games too care. He reckons "fewer than 20%" finished the game.

Despite not receiving much of a critical reception for console bound 'Viking: Battle For Asgard' or 'Stormrise', Creative Assembly won't quit.

The Total War studio, known for the Total War franchise and of Total War-fame, is looking for multiplatform developers "for 360, PS3 and PC".

Portal is arguably one of Valve's greatest creations, and it's thanks to Kim Swift and team for giving us the teleporting phenomenon. She's left.

Swift now resides with her "friends over at Airtight," an opportunity she 'couldn't pass up'. Had "amazing experiences" at Valve, learnt a lot.

While those lucky Americans get to play some ModNation Racers beta this year, from Dec. 18th to Jan. 10th, we at least get unique stuff.

Of course that means they do to, technically. Hmm. The EU beta will run "for 2 weeks" in 2010, giving us 'exclusive content' to play with.

You're a warmongering videogamer, right? Creative Assembly's Empire: Total War now has more 'meat for the grinder' with its latest DLC.

It can be pillaged from Steam, adding new units to the campaign and multiplayer matches for the "American, British and French factions".

Ben Schachter of Broadpoint AmTech is an analyst, and he reckons that Rockstar Games' mega franchise has past its zenith, well sort of.

He cites the underperformance of DLC and smaller GTAs like Chinatown Wars, though they're not "true new GTA titles" admits Schachter.

By Ralph Gerth, Game Designer for Making History II.

In Making History II: The War of the World, the game map is divided into smaller territorial areas we call regions. Similar to a province, regions are the primary possession of every nation. One of our foremost goals for MHII was to increase the concept of the nation as a character in the game world. We wanted them to have a greater presence besides just responding to players actions or acting as a stiff scripted entity. Since a nation is defined by both the government and the territory it controls, the regions seemed like the fundamental location for generating and organizing the gameplay.