Weekly Recap Jan 18th: Titanfall Alpha Test, Banner Saga Launches, Xbox Wins America

The Xbox 360 and Xbox One have taken America by storm in 2013, proving that guns, hamburgers and cellulite rule the day, any day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year. However, winning over couch potatoes, those living on unemployment and the welfare munchers wasn't too much of a challenge for Microsoft. However, the micro 'S' is still losing the rest of the world to Sony and Nintendo. The PS4 still managed to be the best selling eighth gen console in 2013, while Nintendo's Wii U still maintains total market share.

Moving away from the turbulent news of console wars... Titanfall's closed alpha test managed to get underway this week and has already proven to be very popular when it comes to image and video leaks. Also, one of the most critically acclaimed games of the new year has dropped... that's right, The Banner Saga is here. These stories and more in this January 18th, 2014 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.

Sunday

KG-200, KG-300 Headsets Announced For PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, But Not Xbox One Why? Because you have to be an approved peripheral provider for the Xbox One. Oh, but now you don't have a reason to click the link. So you'll probably want to click it anyway because there might be a double rainbow after the jump (but really, there won't be, but you can still click it anyway).

Fable Anniversary Goes Gold; Pre-Order Bonuses Include Weapons, Outfits The latest Fable has gone gold and is prepping for release.

League of Legends E-Mail Verifcation Begins Summoner clean-up is also on the way, so that the game is just a lot more streamlined for the Summoner kind.

4 Games In 2014 With Always-On DRM You'll Probably Play Anyway Because why not, right?

Broken Age Release Date Set It's arriving... the Kickstarter sensation that kind of started it all is arriving to a digital marketplace near you... on PC, of course.

Evoland Gets 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit Nostalgia Right An indie title on a miniature budget managed to capture that classic feeling of adventure and progress like so few AAA games manage to do.

Wake Up Call Unreal Engine 4 Reveal Trailer The game gets formerly announced with an inclusion on Steam's Greenlight. The Unreal Engine 4 powered title is a sandbox stealth-action title, so it should be a game worth keeping an eye on.

Titanfall Low Player Count Matters Gaming Blend's Pete Haas provides a satirical look at the debate over the player-count in Titanfall.

Monday

Mercenary Kings An Unexpected Metal Slug-Style Delight The game is still in early access but it provides enough fun to be considered as a finished game.

SimCity Now Supports Mods; Offline Mode Still Under Consideration At least EA is making some progress right? It only took them a year.

inFamous: Second Son CES 2014 Gameplay Video Is Frustrating Terri-bad AI and limited scope makes InFamous: Second Son look a little less interesting than it should be.

Oculus Rift Is $499? The Kickstarter page says one thing but the facts seem to be saying something else.

Call of Duty: Ghosts Onslaught DLC Release Date, Maps Revealed It's only been out for two months but Activision has DLC primed and ready for their bread and butter maker.

DayZ Standalone Sells 1 Million Copies Less than a month and a million copies. No marketing budget. A single platform. Unbelievably priceless.

Wii U Digital Foundry Story Is Part Of Nintendoom Wheel, Says Dev And around and around we go.

Xbox One May Not Be Microsoft's Final Console Well, according to Phil Spencer anyway.

Herokon Online Expands With Thorwal Update The MMO receives some brand new content to help flesh out its playability and replayability.

GTA 5 PC Petition Gets 650,000 Signatures PC gamers really want GTA V on PC, eh?

Tuesday

League of Legends Season 4 Starts If you're reading this you're already a few days behind. But don't worry, that's what this recap is for.

Call of Duty Ghosts Onslaught DLC Trailer Shows Off Maps, Maverick Rifle New DLC is showcased for Call of Duty: Ghosts. You can check it out in the newest trailer from Activision.

PS4 Outsells Xbox One Germany By 150,000 Units Well this most be really embarrassing for Microsoft.

PlayStation Offers Deep Discounts With 14 For '14 Sale Another smart tactic by Sony to keep the masses appeased and the gamers coming back for more.

Xbox One Launch Was For Core Gamers, Microsoft Wants Casuals For The Future Because cores obviously aren't very reliable folks, am I right?

Nintendo Rewards For January Include 1080 On Wii U A classic from the N64 era gets a redo on the Nintendo's latest console, completely overhauled for today's generation of hardware.

Starbound Character Wipes Will Cease After Next Patch Chucklefish will no longer wipe your character data after the latest patch... that's good news, right?

Wolf Among Us Episode 2 Releasing In February All of you out there desperately seeking news on the next episode of this dark adventure game can get in on the action in just over 15 days.

Banner Saga Wins Over Critics, But Will It Win Over Sales? It's a toss-up right now, but we'll find out once the week finishes out.

Valve: No Refunds Steam Early Access Game If Cancelled. This is a scary thing for the future of Early Access titles... no refunds; how about user library support? Will it still be there?

Wednesday

PS4 Xbox One Architecture Makes Development Easier Says Project CARS Dev The new generation hardware allows devs easier access and budgets to making bigger and better games.

World of Warcraft Designer Ghostcrawler Joins League of Legends Developer From one massive game to the next, Ghostcrawler is definitely following the money.

GTA 5 PC Footage Gets Copyright Strike From Take-Two Interactive Allegedly fake footage of the PC version of GTA V gets taken down by Take-Two Interactive's legal team.

Evolve Announced For Fall Launch, Pre-Orders Now Available If you already know that you're going to be buying the game, you can pre-order it now... even though it isn't due for release until near the end of the year.

BioShock Infinite Big Discounts Hit PlayStation Plus As part of the 14 of '14 sale, BioShock Infinite is one of the games that gets hit with a massive discount.

How To Play Custom Soundtracks During Xbox One Games Need help bringing back some of the goodness from the 360's era? Well, here's a little something-something on how to do that.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 Shouldn't Be Censored An alternative, satirical take on a recent controversial view on the upcoming Lords of Shadow 2.

Next Car Game Now Available For Steam Early Access The physics-driven racer from Bugbear lands on Steam's Early Access.

Killzone Shadow Fall Gives Glimpse Into First Pair Of Free Maps Guerrilla Games gives gamers a small idea of what to expect from the free upcoming maps.

Toukiden Age of Demons Gets Some Oni Slaying Details Check out some of the latest details on the upcoming Japanese title.

Thursday

Unity Engine 4.3 Now Supports PS Vita With the advent of cross-platform games becoming huge with the PS4 and PS Vita, the Unity Engine has decided to add support for Sony's portable device.

Volume Aiming For 60fps and 1080p on PS4 An indie game aims to give the Xbox One a real run for its money.

Hearthstone Beta Keys Sent Out To Everyone Who Signed Up Gamers will receive their beta keys and that enables them to opt-in to popular new MOBA title.

Dark Souls 2 Not Coming To PS4 or Xbox One FromSoftware is limiting the scope of the new release, keeping it to the systems that helped them shape the experience rather than going big and bombastic with the latest generation consoles.

PS4 Leads Total Sales While Xbox One Wins Over America In NPD Report Sony is still having a hard time catering to the needs of Americans, but the Xbox One is having no problem shuffling up the popularity scale with cowboy hat-wearing 'Muricans.

Yes! Guilty Gear Isuka Launches On Steam Hopefully one of many Arc Systems Works games to come to Valve's digital service.

GTA 5 Online Cheaters Banned, Free Money Removed Well, Rockstar really knows how to limit the fun, eh?

Alien Isolation Developer: Resident Evil and Dead Space Turned Into Gears of War Truer words have never been spoken.

Hitman 6 Stars Agent 47, Brings Back Contracts Mode Agent 47 isn't dead... yet.

SteamOS Aims to Destroy Xbox One With Movie, Music Streaming The fight for the all-in-one media system heats up as Valve makes a move to push Microsoft out of their own domain.

Friday

Xbox One Disc Based DRM Issues Due To Suspended Play, Says Xbox Support There's finally an answer for the DRM that has popped up for various Xbox users.

Xbox One Exec Responsible For TV, Movie Content Leaves Microsoft His reasons are sparse but his resolve is clear.

Steam Machine Benchmarks Compared Against PS4, Xbox One How well does the Steam Machine rank up against the PS4 and Xbox One in the benchmarks? Check it out after the jump.

Dragon's Prophet Update Adds Mounted Combat The latest update grants users the ability to hop on a mount and go to town... literally.

Project Phoenix Seeks Additional Funding Through Paypal Campaign The game isn't quite finished with its funding phase just yet.

Nintendo Doom and Gloom Continues As Media Ignores Wii U Situation It wasn't all a crap shoot by Nintendo and a hope for the best.

Basement Crawl Bringing Multiplayer Mayhem To PS4 During the early first quarter drought for the PS4, there's something to help tide over gamers.

X-Men Battle of the Atom Brings Multiplayer Card Combat To iOS A new card combat game is on the way for iOS gamers.

Saturday

Wii U Moves 2.8 Million in 2013, Aims For 6.2 Million by March Despite a few major setbacks, the Wii U actually picked it up during the last half of 2013 to stay in the lead.

KAZ Brings Gran Turismo Documentary To Hulu This thing will be available for digital streamers starting January 22nd.

Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored, Borderlands 2 Bundles Announced For Xbox 360, PS3 Some of the biggest games of the seventh gen have been announced as bundle packs as we kiss the former gen goodbye.

World of Warcraft Warlords Draenor Beta Digital Deluxe Edition Detailed Blizzard still manages to find ways to keep WoW relevant.

HBO Go Coming to PS3, PS4 TV on your TV? Well, Sony is trying it, too.

Is Single-Player Co-op Actually Co-op? Now see, that's a brilliant question. Find out what the answer is after the jump, courtesy of Co-Optimus.

10 Best Selling Video Games of December Just in case you missed the NPD results (highly unlikely) you can check out which games were the best of the final month of 2013.

That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. The video to round out this week has got to go to the upcoming movie-trilogy game, Rambo. You can check out the gameplay clips below.