Winning a Writers Guild Award is no simple feat, and the writers of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation have managed to do just that.

The game took an award for Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing, the Writers Guild of America announced (via GI.biz) today.

The game, which was developed in Ubisoft Sofia and penned by ill Murray and Richard Farrese, handily beat out five other nominees, including Assassin's Creed 3, Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, Halo 4, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and 007 Legends.

Both the console title Assassin’s Creed 3 and the portable counterpart Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation have received a substantial discount from Amazon. All platforms are currently benefiting from the current sale. Here’s a breakdown of each platform, their discount percentage and their new price:

History often seems lightyears away, doesn't it? Even game franchises like Civilization-where you zip from ancient Rome to space flight in the span of hours-put a layer of abstraction over the experience that make it feel distant. The Assassin's Creed games use history exceedingly well, but none of them have felt as personal as Assassin's Creed III: Liberation does. As a black man and parent of a bi-racial daughter, this game hits home for me. But what really surprised me is how this portable Assassin's Creed game comments on racial dynamics in a specific moment in time. You can feel history moving through the game.

Liberation proves that game design inspiration can be found in the ugliest moments of history. But American history doesn't just inspire the mechanics and rules of Liberation's gameplay. The game's story and characters feel more alive thanks to a smart infusion of tropes drawn from the history of black people in the United States. I'm going to point out few examples, some of which contain spoilers. If you want a fresh experience with Liberation's plot, stop reading now.

Proving that people will buy more things when they're cheaper, Sony boasted about Black Friday sales boosts for both the PS3 and Vita. Last week, including Black Friday, Sony sold over 525,000 PlayStation 3 units and 160,000 Vitas in the US, the publisher reported today.

For Black Friday, Sony offered discounted $199 bundles for both the console and handheld – the PS3 with Infamous Collection and the Uncharted Dual Pack, and Vita bundles with a choice of Call of Duty Black Ops Declassified, Lego Batman 2, or Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation. Amazon had an even more appealing Vita bundle, which threw three months of PlayStation Plus and a copy of PS All-Stars in with the Liberation set for $180. Those sold out within five hours. [SOURCE]

Have you checked out that Vita game? You know—the one that's a shoddy spinoff of a big-name series?

Perhaps Call of Duty: Declassified, which currently has a whopping 32% on Metacritic? Or Uncharted: Golden Abyss, a game that our Kirk Hamilton called "a cut-rate version of the Uncharted games that most people have already played"? How about Resistance: Burning Skies, which Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo called "a mediocre new first-person shooter that has no excuses for underachieving"?

It’s been a recurring theme that whenever software actually launches for the PlayStation Vita in Japan, the system gets a huge boost. That’s remained true this week, with Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation pulling the platform out of the danger zone. The handheld adventure was accompanied by a couple of new colours, which prompted the Vita’s tally to more than triple, up from the disastrous 4,021 units reported last week, to the more respectable total of 13,091 units. The game itself sold 24,034 units, earning it a place in the sixth spot on the software charts. [SOURCE]

Developers don’t pound their chest at the sight of their PlayStation Vita software sales very often. There’s a reason for that – if every single PlayStation Vita owner bought LittleBigPlanet, for example, that would be just over 2 million units sold. 2 million in sales isn’t poor, but it’s not a breakout success, nor a reality in this case. For comparison, there has been approximately 3 million PS3 copies of LittleBigPlanet 2 sold, despite a current PlayStation 3 install base surpassing 60 million units.

Wrapped up in the Sony handheld's version 2.0 update, the PlayStation Vita is finally getting PS Plus. Detailing the offering for European users, the subscription-based service will add four free games per month, with the launch line-up including Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush and Chronovolt. Like its big console brother, you can expect to see discounted titles, free demos and other content arrive alongside full titles.

Your Vita will also be able to tap into cloud storage for game saves, with an additional 1GB of space added for the portable console. If you're already paying for PlayStation Plus on your PS3 ( three months at $18 or a one-year plan for $50), you'll pick up the service for free on your Vita starting November 19th (and the 20th in Europe), provided they're linked to the same PSN account. There's a quick video outline (and the European press release) right after the break.

Having just covered the American Revolution, perhaps this would be treading on certain thematic toes from it’s predecessor but it seems like a natural step. There are some fantastic moments, the assault of the Bastille, the march to Versailles  the rise and eventual (hopefully player aided) death of Robespierre, responsible for roughly 16000 – 40000 deaths in his time.

The women’s march of Versaille could perhaps give good reason for Aveline, the half French, half African assassin from Assassin’s Creed Liberation on the Playstation Vita to return as a main protagonist. The events in game could even extend as far as the Napoleonic Wars, if Ubi were wanting more grand historic figures. Aveline may get her chance to be up on the big screen.

You can’t fault Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation’s ambition. Ubisoft Sofia’s sprawling PlayStation Vita exclusive not only faithfully repurposes the free-roaming elimination escapades of its console counterparts, but through the corrupt recollections of mysterious protagonist Aveline de Grandpré it also attempts to imbue the franchise with something new. Frustratingly, a lot of the spin-off’s most fascinating ideas are unfathomable at the best of times.