If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.
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You’ll also find reviews for Remember Me, The Last of Us, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, and Dust 514, as well as previews for Murdered: Soul Suspect, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Disney Fantasia, and Halo: Spartan Assault.
E3 looms:
- The DeanBeat: Our E3 expectations for next-gen consoles, consumer rights, and new games
- GamesBeat Community: Tell us your E3 predictions and wishes
- Twitch schedule confirms game from Respawn at E3
News:
- U.S. consumers spent $3.5B on games in the first quarter, flat from a year ago
- How this purple panda is inspiring games for girls — and angel investors, too
- Hayter’s gonna hate: ’24′ actor Kiefer Sutherland is the new voice of Snake in Metal Gear Solid V
- Respawn will calculate Titanfall’s physics in Microsoft’s cloud
- Journey composer Austin Wintory releases Leisure Suit Larry soundtrack
- Precursor Games cancels controversial Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaign
- After 4 years in development, online game Marvel Heroes debuts
- Zynga may be closing Omgpop game studio that it bought for $180M
- Zynga’s stock dives 12 percent after layoffs
- Analyst predicts: Xbox One priced at $400; PlayStation 4 at $350
- Former Prey 2 writer: What happened to that game was ‘petty’ and ‘political’
Mobile news:
- Cool kids only: Amazon opens dedicated indie-game portal
- Let’s play: Mobile startup Kamcord adds voice-over recording for games
- American McGee will launch Hell Invaders card battler on DeNA’s Mobage network
- Mobile growth will fuel global game market that hits $86.1B by 2016
- Tango’s plan for world dominance after 120M users: Bringing its messaging platform into mobile games
- Plarium aims to reproduce Facebook success with Total Domination: Reborn on iOS
- Green Throttle will pay a 10 percent commission to indie devs who sell its controllers
- Plants vs. Zombies 2 is a free-to-play ‘live service’ — due July 18 for iOS (only)
Microsoft vs. Sony:
- What Microsoft will and won’t let you do with games on Xbox One
- Microsoft confirms Xbox One will require a network connection once a day
- Microsoft tries to defuse privacy issues with new policies for Xbox One
- Microsoft: We won’t charge a used-game fee, but third parties can
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Tech:
- Finally, finally, finally. BlueStacks brings Apple iPhone, iPad games to your TV
- Haswell gaming laptops and desktops compared from HP, Dell, & Lenovo
- PlayHaven’s data tracking goes real time with ‘big data’ acquisition
- SoftKinetic to provide gesture-tracking 3D camera to Intel
- Wikipad’s 7-inch gaming tablet to debut June 11 in U.S. and U.K.
- Dell’s Haswell line-up includes a 27-inch all-in-one computer
- Intel hopes Haswell will produce a PC revival
- Oculus VR posts a memorial for a brilliant game programmer
- Oculus VR co-founder killed in crosswalk during high-speed police chase
Trailer hoedown:
- Sir Patrick Stewart narrates the Gothic action of the latest Castlevania trailer
- The real ‘Citizen Kane’ of video games: Saints Row IV (trailer)
All this funding:
- With $12M in funding, N3twork aims to build a web experience based on your interests, not your friends
- Signia Venture Partners forming $100M fund for mobile, gaming, ed-tech startups
- Intel Capital creates $100M fund to invest in perceptual computing
- Playtox raises $3M in funding to further develop browser-based mobile MMOs
- Double Fine’s Massive Chalice runneth over as it surpasses its crowdfunding goal
- AppLift raises $13M for mobile-game marketing and monetization
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Reviews:
- Kingdom Rush: Frontiers is full of secrets, geeky references, and deep, addicting strategy (review)
- In The Last of Us, you have to earn the right to survive (review)
- Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a delightful refuge from greedy gameplay mechanics (review)
- The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is entertaining but not incredible (review)
- Remember Me steals multiple identities to find its own (review)
- Dust 514: Interstellar drama trumps the cumbersome combat (review)
Previews:
- Disney unveils its Lone Ranger version of Infinity toy-video game hybrid (preview)
- Sega’s Total War: Rome II promises to be a real-time strategy blockbuster (preview)
- Square Enix’s Murdered: Soul Suspect could be one of E3′s best original games (preview)
- Madden NFL 25′s Owner Mode makes you a football mogul (preview)
- In South Park: The Stick of Truth, farting is magic (preview)
- Halo: Spartan Assault — mobile, microtransactions, meh (preview)
- Harmonix shifts music gaming again with Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved (hands-on preview)
Interviews:
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- How The Creative Assembly mashes up turn-based strategy and real-time combat in Total War: Rome II (video interview)
- Disney Infinity looks like a Skylanders clone, but its roots go deep at Disney’s Avalanche (interview)
- Murdered: Soul Suspect aims high with cinematic story and investigative gameplay (video interview)
- Why Microsoft made its top-down Windows tablet game, Halo: Spartan Assault (video interview)
- Harmonix’s Alex Rigopulos on reinventing music games with Disney’s Fantasia (exclusive interview)
- DICE L.A. chief aims to develop triple-A games with Frostbite 3 engine (interview)
Pieces of flair:
- Here’s what you need to build your own holodeck
- How $96,000 can buy you a top 10 ranking in the U.S. app store
- 2013 Into the Pixel collection showcases gaming industry artistry (gallery)
- Not just digital books: How action and innovation are reviving text adventures
- Why the creator of the most realistic gaming gun ever isn’t backing down