Weekly Recap March 16th: Star Wars First Assault, Piston Steam Box Priced, SimCity Goes Offline

Deep Silver is dead set on bringing Saints Row 4 to current gen consoles and even stamped a release date on the game. Kotaku managed to get hold of leaked media assets for Star Wars First Assault, and the video showcased a nearly complete game with a heck of a lot of intensity. Xi3 released pricing and pre-order details, along with the launch window for their Piston Steam Box (unofficial Steam Box, that is), and EA suffers yet another humiliating week at the hands of modders who managed to get the game to work in offline mode and disclose a bunch of other cool stuff that wasn't included in the final release of the game. These stories and more in this March 16th, 2013 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.

Sunday

Relive Classic Nintendo Games With NEStalgic Medley Check out this little chiptune of nostalgia featuring classic titles.

BioShock Infinite Commercial Teased With Image The promo campaign for BioShock: Infinite is getting into full swing.

Project CARS Community Screenshots Break Barriers of Realism It's not just amazing, it's unbelievably amazing how good this game looks.

Maxis Tells Gamers Not To Blame EA For SimCity Launch Fiasco Yes, because it wasn't EA's fault for including always-on DRM into the game. Really?

Dad Hacks Donkey Kong To Make Pauline Hero From Mario to Pauline, this father wants to show his daughter anyone can save the day. Props to this guy for taking the time to do so.

Xi3 Piston Steam Box Pre-Orders Available For $1,000 That's probably going to be a no-sell for a lot of gamers.

[[ br. br ]] Steam Box Could Expand PC Gaming by Several Magnitudes, Says MSI Well of course it could...but it's hard to tell if it actually will.

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Monday

SimCity Ads Suspended Due To Bad Press EA is taking every precaution necessary to save the game from complete and utter failure.

Gundog Preps Early April Beta Test Anthromorphic dogs to the rescue. OGPlanet rolls out some new details on the upcoming MMO.

RaiderZ Broken Silence Expansion Now Available One of the very best F2P games gets expanded to become even bigger.

Injustice Blackest Night DLC Revealed By Amazon Based on the popular comic series, die-hard fans will be able to get the DLC by pre-ordering from Amazon.

Killing Floor 2 Spotted By Steam Database App How true it is remains to be seen, but it's not unlikely.

God of War Ascension Trophy Changed Due To Sexism Charges Bros before foes...that's the new slogan. No longer sexist. Everyone is happy.

SimCity Always-On DRM Is A Disease, Says RPS The gaming press has spoken and it's the one time gamers really need to listen.

StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm Reworks League Play Blizzard wants to focus on League Play but they might want to start with LAN play.

Tuesday

Civitas Kickstarter Picks Up Support Due To SimCity Fiasco The city-builder hops onto the scene to pick up some of the slack created by the always-on DRM fallout.

Happy Wars gets More Customization Options With Update A new update sporting all sorts of sexy new updates and customization features.

PS4 Out Power PCs For Years To Come Says Avalanche Studios The PS4 will out-power PCs for year to come...so says the CTO of Avalanche Studios.

SimCity Offline Mode Officially Canceled, Gamers Stuck With Always-On DRM Such a sad, sad state of affairs.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World gets Wallace Wells, Online Multiplayer New updates and DLC arrives for Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.

Star Wars First Assault Was Supposed to Be Battlefront 3 Precursor but LucasArts decided to poop all over the franchise.

Sound Shapes Gets Vehicles, Levels, Offline Mode Today More good news for the PlayStation's Sound Shapes.

Sleeping Dogs Year of the Snake DLC Now Available For PS3, PC, Xbox 360 Some nifty new DLC to expand the game's story.

Halo 4 Terminal Sequences Used iPi Soft Motion Capture

StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm Launches Worldwide Get involved with the next step in the StarCraft 2 saga with the Heart of the Swarm.

Wednesday

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Microtransactions Pay 2 Wrap Your Gun in Bacon Activision has gone and done it...the only thing they need to do now is charge for reloads.

God of War Ascension Out Today, Hades Multiplayer Video Revealed After a trophy debacle and a lot of anticipation, the PS3 exclusive has officially launched.

Aliens Colonial Marines Bug Hunt DLC Unlocks Early For Xbox 360 Gamers The DLC silently comes online for the controversial shooter.

SMITE Adds Aphrodite To Its Roster A sultry new entry joins the roster of the MOBA title from Hi-Rez Studios.

Assassin's Creed 3 Tyranny of Washington DLC Lets You Fly The ability to fly takes you a long way in the upcoming DLC for Assassin's Creed 3.

Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition Skin Pack 4 Arrives, Retail Released Announced When something makes a ton of money what do you do? Find a way for it to make even more money. Minecraft will get a boxed copy for the Xbox 360.

Thursday

SimCity Offline Mode Is possible, Says Maxis Engineer Someone is lying here and it's either the engineer who worked on the game or EA's PR?

Edge of Space, Guncraft, Sanctum 2 Will be at PAX East 2013 Reverb has a line-up of their top games coming to PAX East later this month.

Floating Cloud God and Rotating Octopus Character are Vita Bound this Summer Two very odd but potentially interesting games are coming to Sony's portable gaming device this summer.

Ubisoft Discounts Anno 2070 In Wake of EA's Botched SimCity Launch Way to go EA, you just gave Ubisoft free sales. *slow clap*

Unity 4.1 Adds AirPlay Support, Easy Memory Management Unity Technology continues to expand and evolve the Unity Engine, making development easy and convenient for developers.

Renaissance Heroes Interview: Leonardo DaVinci Sniper Rifles, Rocket Launchers Pete gets a first-hand interview with the devs regarding Renaissance Heroes.

Sniper Elite 3 Opens Fire On PC, Xbox 360, PS3 In 2014 Well, it's a next-generation sniper game for current generation consoles. Whoopee?

Disney Infinity Delayed August Appease Retailers Retailers don't like summer releases for toys and games, so Disney wants to keep them happy by releasing closer to the fall.

Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams Xbox 360 Release Date Set, Coming Soon To PS3 The little indie that could has just been blasting through the ranks and making money along the way.

Friday

Assassin's Creed 4 Being Developed by 7 Studios, Nearly 1,000 People This is the very definition of game design bloat.

SimCity Offline Mode Achived By Hacker, Proves EA Are Scumbag Liars Un-be-freaking-be-lievable. EA caught in a bold-faced lie? Well who would have thunk it.

Unreal Engine 4 Licensed By Spec Ops The Line's Yager Coming off a moderate commercial success and critically praised game, Yager is moving on to bigger more next-generation endeavors.

Moonlight Online Beta Key Giveaway We're giving away a bunch of beta keys for the newly re-launching Moonlight Online.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Gets Sam Blade, Wolf As Playable DLC in April Two sleek characters will be playable next month in a DLC update.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D Release Date Set For May Nintendo is whipping out the big guns for the Nintendo 3DS.

Walking Dead Survival Instinct Behind The Scenes Video Talks Merle, Daryl Check out Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker talking The Walking Dead.

Moonlight Online Ditching Twilight Aesthetic, Goes For Underworld Fans A darker tone, a more serious promotional direction and no more sparkling vampires. Check out the new and improved Moonlight Online.

Saturday

SimCity's Lucy Bradshaw Defends Always-On DRM, Says EA Didn't Force It On Them This whole thing has turned very ugly and it's absolutely atrocious.

Designing Games For PS4 Is A Walk In The Park, Says Avalanche Studios Better tools, better hardware and better API means that more developers can make more games for the PS4.

Chivalry Medieval Warfare Getting Mod Tool Support Torn Banner are supporting the gaming community with official mod tools, so this could be the next Killing Floor or Half-Life.

SimCity Hack Lets Users Destroy Anyone's Online City Thanks to Always-on DRM Yep, being forced online means that you could become a victim of this.

Resident Evil 6 X Left 4 Dead 2 Sees Valve, Capcom Teaming Up It's not an unholy duo like you might be expecting, it's actually quite cool. Click the link and find out.

Saints Row 4 Announced Become the president and use super powers. Saints Row 4 is going there.

Civilization V Brave New World Expansion Fights Johnny Reb, Colonizes Africa An additional expansion pack for the game opens up some brand new possibilities.

Tales of Laputa Dishes Dirt on Six Playable Classes Get a rundown of the profiles for the characters featured in the upcoming MMO.

Conduit HD Fighting The Good Fight on Google Play Sega's first-person shooter makes its debut on Android phones. Why not on PC? I have no idea.

That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. You can check out an awesome new trailer for Bioshock Infinite below, featuring the two main characters try to escape the crazy land of Columbus.