Well, almost a hundred hours into Skyrim and I’m finally starting to find some bugs. Easily fixed, on a PC, but I gotta say, I feel bad for any Bethesda fans who play on console, period. Which is why I’m happy to note that update 1.2 for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is available now on Playstation 3, with PC and Xbox to follow soon on Wednesday. Fixed glitches include:

UPDATE 1.2 NOTES (all platforms unless specified)

• Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)
• Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive (Xbox 360)
• Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)
• Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away
• Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player’s wedding dead
• Dragon corpses now clean up properly
• Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack
• Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug
• Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely
• Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory
• Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor
• Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death
• ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)
• Fixed occasional mouse sensitivity issues (PC)
• General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)

I’m relieved to hear about the dead bodies glitch fix, ‘cause that was causing marriage ceremonies to fail. Also, the renaming glitch with enchanted weapons and armor, as its helpful to be able to name your enchanted items to keep track of them.

BethBlog says they’ll continue to monitor forums and blogs, seeking out glitches to continue to fix in the next patch, so be sure to vocalize what’s been going wrong with your game so they can fix it! Me, I’d like to see them fix a bug I get sometimes when I enchant items—I get “stuck” when I try to exit, and have to reload from an older save file. Occasionally the enchantments simply refuse to work unless I juggle the order of the components, and sometimes I have to abandon the enchantment all together.

LEGO Macbook keyboard decals, $11.99 by JCDecalStore.

Hey look, you can actually search the web now on Alta Vista. They’ve come so far!

The inevitability of Alan Wake 2 is pretty much a given, anyone who played the game and DLC (or read the developer comments/artist resume leak) can tell you. But a new piece of information may now give us a clue on the “when”. According to Xbox World magazine, a number of titles are already in development for the next gen Xbox, including the sequel to Alan Wake:

“We hear a number of Microsoft-friendly developers are hard at work on prepping next gen games as we speak. Could this be the reason why Remedy are so quiet about Alan Wake 2? (Yes),” the magazine responded to itself. “Rare, Lionhead and Turn 10 all have teams in place too. Rare, we hear, are even prototyping ideas for a new ‘mature title,’” the mag adds.

Lionhead, as you may know, is responsible for Fable, another installment of which would make perfect sense. Turn 10 likely means more Forza. As for Rare…who knows…their only mature franchises are Perfect Dark and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Whatever the case, Xbox 720’s 2013-2015 release window is a ways off yet, meaning we’ll be waiting for Wake for some time.

Straight from Germany’s Gamescom 2011 comes great news for Sony fans. Effective immediately, the Playstation 3 will now cost $249.99, down from $299.99.

Game Informer has released the next little insider tidbit on Borderlands 2, this time a feature on the gun manufacturers featured in the sequel. Familiar faces like Jakobs, Torgue, and Maliwan are returning, while mainstays like Tediore and Vladof have fun new features: ammunition clips that can be thrown like grenades, and the addition of mini barrels, respectively. One new class of weapons seems particularly intriguing; Bandit weapons are cobbled together by their namesakes from an assortment of odds and ends, including a glass bottle in lieu of an actual scope.

The identity of these weapons and their makers is said to be more distinct than in Borderlands, likely because they want the conflict between the major gun manufacturers to be a key part of the series’ focus, an effect that may have been hard to achieve with the original game’s flimsy story telling mechanisms. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with this new Bandit weapon class (pictured above), and if any crafting will come into play.

Expect to see more from Gamer Grrlz on Borderlands 2 during PAX Prime, the game’s official unveiling to the public! And for a few more details on the weapons manufacturers of Borderlands 2, check out the full Game Informer article.

Quick, one of you nerds tell me how to say “Uh oh” in Japanese. Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers has confirmed that the forthcoming Playstation Vita will also work as a Playstation 3 controller. Sound familiar? It should. Post E3, one of the hottest topics was whether or not the Wii U would be Nintendo 3DS compatible: Nintendo even mentioned that they’d at one time considered making the 3DS a workable controller for Wii U. It looks like that will be a reality now for Sony with their next generation of handheld.

All in all, it’s looking like the Vita is shaping up to be formidable competition against the 3DS, whose lack of popularity recently prompted an $80 price drop. With its superior graphics, WiFi/3G capability, competitive pricing, and upcoming Uncharted title, surely the Vita is a real contender.

Oh, and bonus: this Vita/PS3 functionality will be added to past titles with an update in the future, solidifying the sweetness of this new piece of information. Sony, however, has yet to officially comment.

Despite denials from PopCap Games regarding rumors they were about to be sold, PopCap Games has in fact… been sold! To publishing giant EA for $750 million, well below the reported $1 billion.

Prepare to pay $60 for Plants Vs. Zombies 2!

I am now regretting my decision to skip the Nyko booth at E3 this year: I only heard about the Zoom second hand (from The Amazing Society’s Jason Robar, holla!), once I was already on my way back to Seattle. All the same, I’m excited about the Nyko Zoom, which improves your Kinect peripherals by a purported 40%. As Destructoid points out, its release date of August 23 will be well before the debut of Dance Central 2, whose improved two player mode is now more like Kinect Adventures and could well use the added space.

The Nyo Zoom will retail for $29.99.

While Valve disappointingly had nothing to show for E3 2011, it looks like Gamescom will be a different case. A mere two months after L.A.’s big event, the German expo will host the Half Life and Portal creators, who currently are developing Defense of the Ancients 2. Of course, it need not be said that this once again brings whispers of Half Life 3, but more than likely they’ll simply be announcing more Portal 2 DLC. Or hey, maybe they’ll announce Left 4 Dead 3, just to piss us off.

Gamescom will be held in Cologne, Germany, August 17 through August 21, 2011.

Did you guys hear about that? The Facebook smear campaign against Google, wherein they hired public relations firm solely for the purpose of planting anti-Google stories in the press? And out of petty spite, no less. Read up on it at The Daily Beast.

When you’re demanding to be flogged with cat-5 wiring, that’s when you know your addiction to Internet porn has gone way, way too far. Exercise your virtual fetishism with this Internet cable flogger, $10, by FeralSwirl.

The Federal Trade Commission has released a report revealing that video game retailers lead the way in the entertainment industry in age restriction enforcement, far surpassing the sales of CDs, DVDs, and other media in limiting access to underage children.

In their eighth secret shopper test since 2000, the FTC found that 87% of game purchase attempts made by an underage person were blocked, compared to 62% of R rated DVDs, and only 36% of parental advisory-labeled CDs. The figure is also a 7% increase from the last survey, where 80% of underage purchase attempts were blocked in 2009.

Say what you want about the games industry, at least we make sure adult material stays in the hands of adults. Though I think the massive, targeted shakedown on minimum wage earning Gamestop employees might have had something to do with it.

For a full breakdown of the report and statistics, visit:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/04/violentkidsent.shtm

Valve has just made an official announcement regarding the rumored Portal 2 DLC. Coming this summer, the first add-on will add new test chambers (yes!), leader boards, and a challenge mode for single and multiplayer. Oh, and it’s FREE! That’s right, suckers, for all of you who were complaining about the length of the single player mode and “having to shell out $60 for the sequel to a glorified demo”, Valve is releasing this DLC for free. Press release below:

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Apparently, the patch that just went live on Xbox 360 needs to be patched, so decline any requests for now. That is all!