Expect James Bond 24 to adhere to the sort of exploration of 007's emotional character that Skyfall embraced.
Skyfall screenwriter John Logan wouldn't divulge plot details about the next Bond movie he's writing, but he did tell The Financial Times the sequel will once again lean on Bond creator Ian Fleming's more human interpretation of the character.
“Fleming’s courage in showing Bond’s fear and vulnerability and depression was really interesting and something that a modern audience can accept,” said Logan. “I think Skyfall demonstrated that they want more layers to that character. And those are the layers that Fleming wrote.”
Logan is reuniting with Skyfall cast members Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw for his new play Peter and Alice, which opens this month in London's West End. The play chronicles a real-life meeting between Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Peter Llewellyn Davies, the respective inspirations for Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.

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 In the wake of SimCity's ongoing server issues, EA Origin has requested its affilates to "stop actively promoting the game", according to an email received by Polygon.

The email is directed to EA Origin's LinkShare program affilates, in which the company claims it has "deactivated all SimCity text links and creative and we ask you to please remove any copy promoting SimCity from your website for the time-being."
"To be clear we are continuing to payout commissions on all SimCitysales that are referred, however we are requesting that you please stop actively promoting the game," EA Origin writes. "We will notify you as soon as the SimCity marketing campaigns have been resumed and our promotional links are once again live in the Linkshare interface. We apologize for any inconveniences that this may cause, and we thank you for your cooperation."
For players, SimCity has been a frustrating struggle. The game was unable to cope with server load right off the bat even with a staggered release first in the USA, and then only recently in Europe and Asia. Developer Maxis has promised to address the issue over the weekend, but for now has deactivated certain 'non-critical' gameplay features to help soothe server pressure.
Sever issues aside, however, SimCity is shaping up to be an excellent reboot of the popular city simulation franchise. IGN is yet to review the game due to the on-going problems, but you can read our review in-progress to know our thoughts on the game.

In a letter from SimCity developer Maxis, the studio vows to fix their game, and offers up a freebie as an olive branch.

Releasing SimCity has been a bit of a fiasco for developer Maxis and publisher EA. The game simply isn’t working for a lot of gamers, which at first caused EA to disable “non-critical features” in the game. The issues are caused by SimCity’s always-online DRM, causing us to wonder aloud if such an anti-piracy system should be avoided completely. EA has even pulled its marketing for the game.
In other words, SimCity is in a bad way, but an update from Maxis’ General Manager Lucy Bradshaw has some good news for eager players who want to get some city-building done.
Bradshaw explains that “the server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as [Maxis] added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.”
“So what went wrong?” Bradshaw asked. “The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.”
“OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it.
Bradshaw notes that sever capacity has increased 120% in the last 48 hours, and that “disrupted experiences” are down about 80%. “So we’re closed to fixed, but not quite there,” she admits.
Candidly, Bradshaw also notes that “SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets,” but that “if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience.” And so while EA and Maxis continue fixing things on their end, they also want to offer up a freebie (in lieu of giving players a refund).
“…to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game. I know that’s a little contrived,” Bradshaw admits, “kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.”
“Hang in there,” she concludes here note, “we’ll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.”

 

New Tomb Raider PC Patch Offers Stability, Fixes

Crystal Dynamics has issued a new patch for Tomb Raider that should offer PC users of Intel and Nvidia chips some respite. According to the changelog, the patch should address the instability players faced with those hardware, especially for Nvidia users who faced a multitude of problems such as constant crashes to the desktop.
Additionally, the patch fixes an issue for some players who were unable to progress beyond the 'boat in the beach' area, and some minor glitches here and there. It should also improve Lara's TressFX a bit.
Complete changelog here:

• Addressed some stability issues on machines that have both Intel and Nvidia graphics hardware.
• Various small UI updates.
• Fix for players being unable to progress related to the boat in the beach area.
• Some fixes for crashes on startup and when selecting Options.
• Some improvements to TressFX hair rendering.
• Fixes for various smaller graphics glitches.
• Fixes related to the benchmark scene and benchmark mode.

To receive the patch, just restart your Steam client and the download should begin immediately.
Let us know in the comments if you noticed any improvements with the new patch. Nvidia apologized to users a few days back for being unable to provide proper support for Tomb Raider with their drivers, citing Crystal Dynamics' inability to ship a final code for tweaking. The company said it will roll out a new driver soon, and while it should smoothe out performance woes, Crystal Dynamics had to improve their code as well for better implementation. It seems they have kept their word, your turn Nvidia!

 

→ March 8, 2013 Here we are then, at the real end of the Mass Effect saga. Appropriately, Citadel isn't about saving the galaxy, but about saying goodbye – goodbye to Commander Shepard, to the Normandy, and to Mass Effect as we know it. It doesn't change anything about how the trilogy ended, or make any fresh apologies for it. Nor does it offer hints on its future or change the present. Instead, it seizes the chance to do what most big games can only dream of doing – to have one last hurrah to celebrate everything that made the series great.

Citadel is probably my favorite individual chunk of Mass Effect yet – one that requires and shamelessly exploits existing love and nostalgia for the series and its characters, but pulls it off well enough that any fan should spend the whole adventure grinning and laughing like a crazy person. Shadow Broker is arguably superior due to playing things straight and actually developing the story, but this is far, far more fun.

What looks like a screenshot of an Assassin's Creed project has appeared online via All Games Beta.

The image gives almost nothing away, but given that Ubisoft Digital Arts (the branding on the bottom left) is the company's "cinema creation studio", it could well be a film-related project rather than a gaming one. Assassin's Creed III: Liberation sold well on PS Vita, though, so another Vita game is far from impossible.
The next console entry in the series, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was announced this week, and we've got oodles of coverage of it. There's also an Assassin's Creed movie in production with Michael Fassbender.