If you've ever gazed upon concept art for Mass Effect or Dragon Age and thought, "Crikey, that's pretty damn awesome", then you're all ready a fan of Matt Rhodes and probably never knew it.

He's quite the talented artist as is plane to see on his Deviant Art page right here.

But one of his most impressive works is the strip viewable after the jump called My Hero which he created for the Anthology Project graphic novel series (which is very worthy of your money and viewable here). Seriously, your life will be better for having flicked through this comic strip. Go read it now.

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Angry rant time. Buckle up.

What’s with the gaming guys? Asks a recent article by a Sydney Morning Herald columnist. With hands on hips, and a gosh, oh shucks demeanour, the journalist wonders aloud just what’s up with these crazy men who game on Saturday night and on the train with their phones and what not. Don’t they know they’re missing out on magical, fulfilling activities like socialising and passionate romances?

Gee whiz, those gamer guys and their games. When will they learn?

So I was going to type up a quick bit last Thursday about the Assassins Creed III artwork being leaked through a Gamestop newsletter.

Then the Game Informer cover dropped showing George Washington on the back cover flanked by troops, then the leaked screenshots, and the box art reveal, and the official webpage countdown. So screw it. Everything is after the jump if you want to see it.

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Sometimes when you meet someone new, you instantly fall in love. They are charismatic, hilarious, super intelligent and reliable. It doesn't matter that they are a man and you are a man because of the word bromance. It's no longer 'gay' to say 'I love you, man'. But I bet Aaron Mitchell gets that lot.

From what I know about him - and considering I have met him twice and he lives on the other side of the country, that ain't much - he is a hard-working family man and hardcore geek. The good kind of geek. Not the ironic kind of geek and not the deviated septum kind of geek. The normal, internet-using, comic-book reading, cinema-loving, 21st century male human being. I also know he is a brilliant writer, and if I didn't know what the word 'prolific' meant before Aaron Mitchell started writing for That Aussie Game Site, I sure would now.

As indicated by the chart above, and certainly not to detract from our entire team of brilliant, past and present writers, the man is a writing machine with the uncanny ability to tell me whether I should or shouldn't play a game without boring me into a coma. He puts together weekly recaps of the gaming world full of information that I could get anywhere and EVERYwhere online. I am well informed when it comes to videogames, but I still read Aaron's articles. I'm sure a lot of you still read Aaron's articles.

So, it is with great pleasure that I announce stage one of a That Aussie Game Site re-brand - our revised logo in the top left-hand corner. One that centres around Aaron Mitchell. One that shines a spotlight on an electronic entertainment writer who deserves it.

From all of us at That Aussie Game Site and on behalf of our reader base we say, Thank you Aaron Mitchell...now say, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

So, my Fiance is turning 31 this year and while we try to establish birthday 'budgets' every year, I can never stick to them. I feel money spent greatly outweighs effort put in. Further to that, she's turning 31, which is way worse than turning 30...it's 30 plus 1 year. Her birthday is March 8. Mass Effect 3 drops March 8.

I will either be stone broke or dealing with a very emotional birthday girl. Oh, who am I kidding? I will be both. What I won't be doing, is playing Mass Effect 3.

For all you lucky people out there who have nothing better to do than to play my most anticipated game for 2012, below is the latest trailer for Mass Effect. It's the extended cut Take Earth Back trailer that you may have seen earlier in the week.

I haven't watched it yet. I just can't do it to myself.

Last week on the 9th of February Adam Adamowicz passed away from cancer. I didn't know the mans name until I read his obituary on Joystiq which is utterly shameful as I'm a huge fan of his work. I spent most of the last few years completely lost in a world he designed and so far a great deal of this year lost in another world of his design. Adam was a conceptual artist for Bethesda games and the lead artist for Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

While Todd Howard is the name we automatically link as the creative force behind these titles it's clear from the art below that Adam did a lot of work to define the look and feel of the worlds he worked in. Cancer is an absolute bastard of a disease, no question. Adam and his contributions will no doubt be missed by millions of fans alongside his friends and family.

Yes, I know, there was no Tuesday Cap last week, and guess what, there isn’t one this week either, and before you get your hopes up there won’t be one next week.

Commence your pelting with rotten vegetables now.

The news roundup isn’t dead. I’ve just been too damn busy to do it. Grown up responsibilities and all that, a combination of work and family commitments that has me busy for almost every hour of the day. So, please accept my apologies and I promise to try gosh, darn hard to get back on schedule in February.

I have two reviews I'll post before the end of the week that will hopefully tide you over.

There has been a stack of excellent game demos appearing for download the last two weeks. Asura’s Wrath, Darkness 2, Final Fantasy XIII-2, a real smorgasbord of free game bites for people too cheap to spring for full games, and people like with no time but a bites worth.

The stand out for me was Kingdom of Amalur. This is a demo that sold me in a huge way putting the game firmly on my preorder list.

When I first read about Kingdom of Amalur I was excited, a few screenshot and gameplay videos didn’t enthuse me much. But after playing the demo I am psyched. For a start, it’s a timed demo, not some rough cut of the tutorial stage. You get to go out and explore some of the huge world, find your own quests and complete them, within forty five minutes. The gameplay is a very slick and pretty hack and slash style with charge moves, combinations, counters and violent finishing moves.

Immediately you think ah ha! This is one of those hack and slash games with middling level up bonuses that pretends to be an RPG. Not so, the game is massive, open world and has deep crafting elements that are easily the rival of Skyrim. The levelling system is complex with lots of options to customise your character in all sorts of directions, cross pollinating abilities between the three classes, rogue, warrior and mage. I’ve played through the demo four times so far using very different characters.

The world is far more cartoon like and animated than most RPG games, looking more like Warcraft than Oblivion, far more fantastical fantasy than mediaeval fantasy. The closest comparison would likely be Fable, only with a far smoother and action friendly control scheme and a bigger focus on fighting than farting.

Still not convinced? Well playing the demo unlocks a special item in Mass Effect 3, and playing to the end of your allotted play time earns you another special item. So there you go.

Well it's almost 2012 and the much hyped end of civilisation as misinterpreted by quacks and loonies who think the Aztec's and Mayan's had magical and/or alien powers.

2011 was a pretty big year for games. Maybe even the biggest with event titles like the end of Gears of War, the greatest license game ever made in Batman Arkham City, the first triple A shooter playable with motion controls in Killzone 3 and the WIi's swan song, and best game, in Skyward Sword. There were some serious cowbell like duds thrown into the mix as well, the long awaited Duke Nukem didn't quite win new fans at it's debut and much vaunted Call of Duty killers like Homefront and Battlefield 3 fell short of Activisions iconic behemoth.

On top of that we saw new portable devices from Sony and Nintendo released new handhelds, unfortunately the same year the mobile gaming became the hot topic, either as the future or end of gaming depending on who you ask.

Here's a retrospective video of some of the last years most popular titles with some Placebo over the top, how many did you play?

Sorry, no cap today. Game news round ups will continue next week. I've got a tiny handful of days off and I'm making the most of them by gorging myself on shortbread and kahlua and having family time.

Hope you're enjoying the holidays and here's another hilarious christmas themed gif to get you through.