Weekly Recap Feb 2nd: GTA V Release Date Confirmed, Orion Jurassic Edition, Games Vs Guns

This week was pretty big. We're already the second month into 2013 and we've already received some huge news regarding the biggest video game franchise in existence. That's right, Rockstar has confirmed the release date for Grand Theft Auto V, and it's actually closer to release with the next-gen consoles than it is in the traditional spring release. A new dinosaur hunting game is in the works called Orion: Dino Beatdown Jurassic Edition, which contains all sorts of new goodies, and the video games versus gun violence debate rages on, with a U.S. Senator saying that video games kill, not guns. These stories and more in this February 2nd, 2013 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.

Sunday

Minecraft Gamers Make Working 8-Bit Computer Inside Minecraft You sort of have to read it to believe it.

Tomb Raider Preview Video Says Multiplayer Is Tacked-On You might have to play it for yourself to know whether or not it's true.

SuperBot Entertainment Hit With Layoffs After the recent release of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, the developer was recently hit with layoffs.

Convince Someone To Buy A Vita and You Both Earn Rewards It's like some sort of super special blackhole vortex that only spews out good things...I'm talking about Sony's PlayStation division, that is.

Cave Review: An Afternoon Delight Gaming Blend's Pete Haas has some kind words for the Double Fine Studios crew.

Vigil Games Pays Tribute To Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword While the studio may have dissolved they're still giving fans a little bit of something-something to hold on to.

Sly Cooper Thieves In Time Demo Available To PS Plus Subscribers You can grab a playable demo of the latest Sly Cooper game right now if you're a PS Plus member.

Monday

Evoland Brings Evolutionary Legend of Zelda Gameplay To Greenlight Fusing turn-based and real-time combat with a journey from 8-bit worlds to 64-bit aesthetics.

BioShock Infinite Documentary Tells Columbia's Story Find out how the city in the sky came to be and how it achieved the reputation that it currently has.

Chasm Brings Back The Charm To Side-Scrolling RPGs A new game clambering onto Steam's Greenlight is as inventive as it is charming.

War Thunder Heads Into Open Beta The new free-to-play aerial combat simulator heads into open beta.

Skyrim DLC Dragonborn Now Available For Pre-Purchase If you think the DLC is worth it, you can pay for it before you even get a chance to see it in action.

Ragnarok Online Valkyrie Uprising Brings MMO Fun to Mobile This February The popular PC MMORPG will make its way to Android and iOS next week.

Orion Dino Beatdown: Jurassic Edition Coming To Steam Q1, 2013 While the original game didn't get all that great a reception, the sequel looks like a kickbutt throwdown in dino-town. I'm in.

Guise Wolf Stealth Gothic Werefolf Game An interesting new game that puts players in the shoes of a werewolf. Good stuff.

Gears of War Judgment Demo Early Access As GameStop Exclusive grab the game from GameStop and you get early access to Judgment's demo.

Tuesday

D2D Games Used To Increase Financial Literacy A financial awareness company wants to help out the middle and lower income brackets using video games.

PS Plus Promotion Offers Three Extra Months With One Year Subscription This is an excellent deal for those who decide to get in on the action while the action is worth getting in on.

Killzone Mercenary Details Announced By Polish Mag At least the PSV is still getting some good games, yeah?

Muramasa Rebirth Coming To U.S. Vitas Thanks to Aksys Akysis Games does gamers a service by setting a release date for the Vita version of Muramasa.

Vector Parkour Action Game Comes To Greenlight Run, jump and leap through urban environments in the silhouette game, Vector.

Legend of Zelda Hyrule Historia Now Available The big book of Zelda becomes available for fans of the series.

Battlefield 3 End Game Brings Back Air Superiority Mode EA and DICE keep rolling out more updates for Battlefield 3.

Nintendo 30th Anniversary Games Release Dates Announced Nintendo sets out the official release date for the 30th Anniversary Games pack.

Wednesday

Prince of Persia Shelved by Ubisoft The series will be sitting on a shelf for a while until they can figure out how to get it to turn a profit.

Killzone Mercenary Release Date Confirmed, Watch The Gameplay Trailer Now The PS Vita's Killzone finally gets a firm release date.

Wii U Now Supports Full Havok Development Suite Design tools from Havok have become a lot more accessible to Wii U developers, starting today (well, not really “today” for those of you reading this late).

Dead Space 3 Pay 2 Win Cash Shop Items Listed, Priced You don't have time to play and enjoy the game? Check out the items you can buy in order to win faster.

Wii U Sells 3 Million Units, 11 Million Games Nintendo may not be breaking down barriers the way they did with the Wii U but they're doing what they can.

Pirates of the Burning Sea Joins Portalus Games Leaving SOE and joining Portalus brings a fresh start to Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Radagast Joins Guardians of Middle Earth for Xbox 360 A new hero joins the 360 for Guardians of Middle-Earth.

Valve Modifying Steam Eula, VZBV Files Complaint With Court of Berlin Things end back up in hot water for Valve and the VZBV.

Thursday

Torchlight 2 Mod Adds 28 Dungeons, Necromancer Class Talk about one big, motha-loving mod. This is the sort of thing that makes paid-for DLC look like petty swindler's sabbatical.

Madden 25 Apparently Madden NFL 14 EA commemorates the long running brand with a special outing planned for release later this year.

Operation Giant Announced For Ouya, Mirrors Pacific Rim A game about a giant mech suit having to battle alien invaders? Count me in.

GRID 2 Release Date Scheduled For May, Special Editions Detailed Codemasters rolls out the official release numbers for the upcoming racing title.

RaiderZ, Best F2P MMO Getting New Content Soon The action-heavy MMO is receiving some new content thanks to the new screenshots.

Proteus Brings Open-World Meditative Gameplay To Steam traverse a serene and colorful world with the new indie game, Proteus.

Killer Is Dead Slicing Up U.S. Retail This Summer XSeed games goes knee-deep in Suda51 territory with the new title Killer Is Dead.

Akaneiro Demon Hunters Goes Live, Has 50 Hours Left On Kickstarter The ARPG could use a little help getting across that tough-but-visible finish line.

Friday

Video Games Bigger Problem Than Guns Says U.S. Senator Guns don't kill people, games do.

Gaming Blend Godsrule Beta Event With Free Cash Shop Goodies We teamed up with Sega for their latest game and we're handing out some free beta codes and cash shop goodies, more than $20 worth of content.

God of War Ascension Legacy Bundle Includes garnet Red PS3 This game just keeps getting better and better...a Garnet Red PS3 is the stuff envy is made of.

GTA V Release Date Announced It's much, much, much later than you were expecting.

Unity DirectX 11 Contest Winner Is The Museum Of The Microstar This is a really interesting tech demo showcasing the power of Unity in under five minutes.

Horror Game Teased For February 20th Reveal What could it be or rather...who could it be?

Frozen Synapse Tactics Taking The Fight To PS3, Vita Later This Year The popular strategy game for PC will make the jump to consoles later this year.

Saturday

Skyrim PS3 DLC Dragonborn, Dawnguard, Hearthfire Release Dates Announced So it's true...they really did delay the DLC because Microsoft paid them to. How shameful.

Dawnstar Co-op Review The new space-simulator Dawnstar has recently released and Co-Optimus has a review up for the game detailing the cooperative play.

In-Depth Review: Omerta City of Gangsters The recently released strategy, turn-based game from Kalypso gets the review treatment...is it really worth the price of entry?

PS4 Announcement February 20th Sony Teases Big Reveal Could it be? The PlayStation 4? Hopefully so.

Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, REDengine 3 Revealed Get a first glimpse at the next-generation of gaming folks.

Munchkin Set To Invade Xbox Live A new XBLA title is inbound for Microsoft's system.

That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. It seemed like things really didn't kick it into high gear until the end of the week. Things will get really get hot and heavy later this month when Sony delivers on their big announcement.