Initially appearing to be a bit more official than the standard placeholder date, a Brink sweepstakes page on GameStop's website declares the first-person shooter's release date as September 7, 2010. Publisher Bethesda Softworks tells Joystiq that the date should be "considered speculative." A representative for the company explained, "Often times retailers will assign a release date for a game that falls within the game's announced launch window. While we have announced that Brink is due out in Fall 2010, we have yet to announce an official release date for the game."

GameStop now notes on its Brink page: "Official pricing and release dates have not been announced by the publisher. These are estimates only and subject to change."

[Via Videogamer]

Consumers in the UK poured out the pounds for PS3's Heavy Rain last week, according to Chart-Track's all-formats chart. The adventure game took the hill from Aliens vs. Predator, which slipped down one spot. Meanwhile, Just Dance kept doing its cha-cha of endurance and took third.

Nintendo's Wii Fit Plus got a second wind (or a big shipment to the region) and overtook Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 after moving up five spots and into fourth. Finally, Napoleon: Total War marched in at #12 while White Knight Chronicles began its quest at #35.

Source – Heavy Rain storms the charts [GFK Chart-Track]
Source – Latest UK Software Charts [GFK Chart-Track]

When you come right down to it, genetic engineering is about the only shot humans are going to have at developing real super powers. Which is why BioShock and BioShock 2 are more than just stories about some nifty underwater city gone wrong. When you have people that can move objects with their minds or blast fire from their hands and then stick them in a gorgeous dystopia, that's when you've got a story.

So what better way to celebrate that world than by bringing it into our own? With that in mind, we're offering up a mess of BioShock swag: one BioShock "Don't Wait! Incinerate!" women's shirt (size medium), one BioShock 2 Butterfly Hands men's shirt (size small), two different BioShock lithographs, and one extremely cool, handmade Splicer mask. Check out the prizes in the gallery below, and read the rules to enter.

Note: as a BioReminder, Rapture Radio is still active and broadcasting, and much thanks to Sony Legacy for supplying us with these nifty prizes. Their BioShock 2 soundtrack is still available in both Deluxe and Standard editions.

• Leave a comment telling us what plasmid power you'd want. Feel free to make up your own.
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec, mostly due to our exclusion from a "statut particulier" status in Canada).
• Limit 1 entry per person per day.
• This entry period ends at 7:01PM ET on Monday, March 1.
• At that time, we'll randomly select one winner to receive one BioShock 2 men's butterfly shirt, size small (ARV $10), one BioShock 2 women's "Incinerate!" shirt, size medium (ARV $10), two BioShock lithographs (ARV $15 each), and one handmade Splicer mask (ARV $50).
• For a list of complete rules, click here.

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What is Joyswag? Since we don't keep the games and merchandise we receive for review or promotional purposes, it becomes "Joyswag," which is passed along to our readers. Please note that Joyswag may be in "used" condition. For more info on our policy, click here.

Presumably doing a little early spring cleaning, the team at Binary Tweed have released the complete soundtrack to its original Xbox Live Indie Game Clover. For the low, low price of free, those who download the soundtrack will be treated to a piano assortment composed and recorded by Chris Chillingworth (he's got a MySpace, so he's legit).

Clover is scheduled to make its PC debut with a new "longer, sexier" musical accompaniment on March 3 with Clover: A Curious Tale. Hopefully the new version doesn't disappoint. Download the free album here.

Nothing says "It's seriously snowing, again?" like a new trailer for MLB 2K10 focusing on the "real language" of baseball. Being pro chair sitters, we're not really able to vouch for the validity of this trailer's claims about the vernacular of the diamond, but we can make the claim that the uncanny valley of video games is being crossed by sports. We certainly aren't sports buffs, but some of the graphics look damn near real life. And yes, whatever the announcers are saying could be spoken in mistranslated Mandarin Chinese for all we know, but that doesn't make the visuals any less impressive.

Nope, we're not any more excited to play this game now than we were before seeing the trailer, but the baseball fans among you will assuredly find the video embedded above for this Tuesday's MLB 2K10 helpful in sating your desires for another few days. We'd say go play some baseball in the meantime, but, well, you know. All that snow.

If you've been putting off that trip to Hell for financial reasons, it looks like Target might lend you a hand next week. Starting this Sunday, Dante's Inferno will be on sale for only $39.99, a full $20 off the normal retail price. Not a bad deal for a game that has thus far drawn passable reviews.

The store is also knocking ten bucks off the the price of NBA 2K10, making it a cool $29.99. Just be warned, while the price is right, you might be waiting a while before you can play a proper game online. Oh, you can also snag a free Ho-Oh or Lugia Pokémon if you pre-order either Pokemon SoulSilver or Pokemon HeartGold. We suggest you do that and pick up Dante's Inferno. It'll be really confusing to the cashier.

If you and your buddies were wondering what the upcoming real-life kart racer (with realistic cars), Blur, has to offer in terms of multiplayer content, the latest trailer for the game was made specifically with y'all in mind. Like Super Mario Kart -- the game is often said to be a direct inspiration for Bizarre Creations' latest endeavor -- local split-screen seems to be a prominent component of the multiplayer experience, unlike the online-focused games we're so used to at this point.

Oddly, though, the trailer speaks repeatedly of the "social" aspect of the game, while no mention whatsoever of any online components are made (and what of that multiplayer beta, eh?). We're not exactly flummoxed quite yet though, as Blur still only has a "2010" release window and we've hardly seen it since last year's PAX Prime. That could always be, though, that, you know, we missed it. It is a blur, after all.

Honestly, taking the normal subway can be a pretty terrifying proposition. Those underground trains already play host to all kinds of unsavory creatures, so it's hard to imagine it being scarier. That is, unless you watch the above trailer for Metro 2033. If you thought the regular subway was bad, wait until you experience the subterranean horror that is the post-apocalyptic Russian metro system. Sure, that guy in the trench coat -- the one that smells vaguely of Vienna sausages -- is pretty scary, but he's got nothing on Metro 2033's giant bat creatures, explosions and hideous gray monstrosities.

Check it out in the video above. Oh, and if you want that massive automatic shotgun, you'll have to pre-order from GameStop. Metro 2033 hits the shelves beginning March 16.

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Remember those other awful Activision Transformers games based (in some part) on the Michael Bay movies? No? Good, let's work from there.

Transformers: War for Cybertron, developed by High Moon Studios (The Bourne Conspiracy, Darkwatch), takes its inspiration from the G1 universe of the '80s cartoon. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. It's more like what the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie is to the original. The characters are the same, their motivations are similar; however everything has a whole new (in this case, literal) paint job. Lead Designer Matt Tieger tells us the game presents "nothing that violates your expectations" and the studio worked closely with Hasbro to stay true to the original idea of the Transformers ... speaking of the original idea of Transformers, there will also be action figures based on the game's interpretations of the characters.

In War for Cybertron, players participate in two campaigns, one following the righteous Autobots and the other shadows the misunderstood Decepticons. Both campaigns take place on the Transformer home planet of Cybertron and, as Tieger puts it, "Ends up with them having no place to go."

Each campaign features three-player online (no offline or "couch") co-op. For the Autobots, the level we saw featured Optimus (not a Prime, yet) and Bumblebee meeting for the first time, and rolling along in the always awkward "third wheel" spot was Ratchet. The Decepticons included Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Soundwave and Megatron. Of course, in both cases, there are several more playable characters. For fans of the original series, many of the voices will sound wrong -- sadly, in some very important instances, the cartoon's original voice actors have passed away.

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If you were hoping to infiltrate this post about Splinter Cell Conviction and find anything short of three trailers, then prepare to be totally satisfied. Ubisoft's established a correspondence with Joystiq, deploying three fresh new videos from April's Badass: The Game -- and like that totally accurate and brief description, these videos will bash your face against a mirror and leave you bleeding for dead on a men's room floor. OK, not really, but we're painting a picture, so work with us here. A picture with words.

Above, you'll find a brief overview of how the co-op game fits into the story and the four additional gameplay modes, but you'll need to sneak on past the break for the next two pieces of intel: one video is a closer look at Deniable Ops, while the other documents Persistent Elite Creation, the special series of challenges within the single-player and multiplayer framework. Basically, it's a fancy way of saying "unlockable junk for your stuff."

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The upcoming Transformers: War for Cybertron seems determined to impress with its rendition of the titular transforming robots' home world, Cybertron. But see, there's one crucial mistake made by the game, one that hasn't been entirely evident until now: No matter what planet he's on, no matter where he is, Optimus Prime is only allowed to transform into a truck and not Tim Burton's version of the Batmobile from 1989. Well, okay, we lied -- we'll also accept Optimus in gorilla form, too.

After you've checked out the trailer above, be sure to morph into our gallery below, which is packed with a bunch of new screens from the upcoming robo-brawler.

Talk may be cheap, but so is murdering people in 15th century Italy -- for now. Walmart is selling Assassin's Creed 2 at a discounted price of $36, both online and in-store. For some reason, the PC version of the game is still full price, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.

As for other titles on sale, it would appear this reduction in price is isolated only to Assassin's Creed 2.

[Thanks, Luis]

CaptiveMotion has announced that it has completed work on the facial animation for Alan Wake. The company provided facial capture services for the developers at Remedy to use in the upcoming thriller. One of the more intriguing aspects of the announcement is that the facial capturing done by CaptiveMotion was actually done separately from the full body motion capture used in the game, which was completed six months prior. As a result, CaptiveMotion had to "present the data in a fashion that Remedy could easily integrate it into their pipeline."

The capture technology itself is called Embody, which allows up to 1,600 markers to be mapped on a single motion capture actor. See it in action in the (somewhat bizarre) video after the break.

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You love explosions, right? You're a fan of head thrashing music, are you? Can't get enough of text flying at your face, you say? Well hold on to your underwear because the television spot for EA's upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2 includes all of those things and more.

Developed by DICE and coming soon to the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 hits stores March 2 and will probably feature more explosions and generic rock music. Hopefully the lines of accolades will be omitted during gameplay -- being obscured like that would ravage our kill/death ratios.