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Ah, what could have been. In the wake of EA and Disney's blockbuster deal to make new Star Wars games, the developers of the Just Cause series have come out and said that, a few years back, they came very close to making a game for former owners Lucasarts. A former Avalanche manager (Oskar Burman) and the studio's current Chief Creative Officer Christofer Sundberg jumped on Twitter yesterday to talk about the project that never was. @oskarburman If they had given us the deal back then Lucas Arts would be alive today. A massive SW open world game! We would have rocked it. — Christofer Sundberg (@CHSundberg) May 7, 2013 Given how fantastic Just Cause 2 was, you would indeed have rocked it. Oh Lucasarts. Twitter [via Joystiq]

This is...words escape me. For reference, it's hyping Sony's PS4 press conference at E3, and Tony Stark is legendary developer (and PS4 wizard) Mark Cerny. If anyone knows who actually made this thing, let me know so we can give credit (and rapturous applause). (thanks GreenLantern09!)

Next up from Telltale, developers of The Walking Dead adventure game? A prequel to the Fables comics series. It's based on the adventures of detective Bigby Wolf, and Game Informer have just uploaded the first screens (and previewed the game). If you liked Walking Dead's cel-shaded look, you'll love this. The Wolf Among Us: Telltale Is Back Again To Torment With Tough Choices [Game Informer]

Not only do they strike hard and fade into the night, these particular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can be a great help with keeping loaves of bread fresh. This fantastic twist-tie sculpture comes to us from Deviantartist JustJake54, and has got me reflecting on the many uses I've found for twist-ties over the years. The most practical, I think, was when I kept my guitar pedalboard closed with a couple of twist-ties for... man, for a year at least; the plastic fastener had broken, so I threaded twist-ties through the eyelets and they totally kept it closed. (PSA: Don't ever buy guitar equipment with plastic fasteners.) Everyone doing well? Having a good week so far? Talk twist-ties, guitars, Ninja Turtles, or anything else, here or over at TAY. Have good chatting, see you tomorrow. (Via Geekologie)

I promise you, this is not a trick. You should play Dream Island, the silliest, most absurd game I've played in a while. Think of it as an episode of Adventure Time; it has the same type of weird randomness. What you can expect: DAWGS that don't look like dogs. Boom box T-Rex. Men repeatedly flying off buildings (this was weirdly mesmerizing). Broken robots. Possibly useless maze? Listen—just wander, soak it in, and don't think so much. I laughed and scratched my head, even though technically the game isn't what you'd call "polished." Let that go. Enjoy it. I'd love to hear your theories on what the player character is, cause I have no idea. Play it here.

Take the original 151 Pokémon. Get a different artist to do each one in whatever medium they want, all as a part of the same collection. What do you get? A Pokémon gallery called Rare Candy. Currently you can view all 151 of the Pokémon in the gallery here, where you can also bid for the creations. The auction is for charity, and as of this writing at least, the pieces are going for kind of cheap. From the website: Peter Le and Amy Kim originally had a small idea of a fun art gallery dedicated to the original 151 Pokemon that they and many of their friends have all grown up watching. With the help of friends and students in the Animation/Illustration program at San Jose State University, they decided to make it for a good cause! They recruited 151 artists and randomly assigned each artist one of the 151 original Pokemon. The artists had the freedom to interpret their Pokemon in any way they wished. The result is the Rare Candy Pokemon Art Auction for Charity. All artwork made for the gallery will be auctioned off and 100% profit gained from the artwork will be donated to Canines for Disabled Kids. This is a non-profit organization that enhances the lives of deaf and physically disabled children by partnering them up with trained service dogs. You can find out more about the organization at their website: www.caninesforkids.org Here are some of the highlights from the gallery—and remember, if you're near the bay area, you can see these pieces in person until May 17th at the 225 West Santa Clara Umpqua Bank in San Jose:

Point-and-click adventure gurus Daedalic Entertainment have a solid track record when it comes to strange, artistically vibrant games. From Deponia to Harvey's New Eyes to The Whispered World, the German studio's games conjure strange lands, mystical beasties, and grim/Grimm fairy tales. The trailer above is for Daedalic's latest, The Night of the Rabbit. I'm not sure how the actual game will turn out, but this trailer, at least, has got me intrigued. I've actually never had a chance to play any of Daedalic's games, but our resident adventure game aficionado Mike Fahey is a big fan, to the point where he's got me halfway convinced to fire one up. That or I could just wait for NotR, which comes out on May 29.

Six months on, Windows 8 has moved 100 million licenses and will receive an update codenamed "Blue" later this year.

With my children rapidly approaching gaming age, I want their introduction to my favorite pastime to begin with the classics — NES, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. The Super Retro Trio, coming this summer from Innex and Retro-bit, handles games from all three of those systems for a mere $69.99. That'll look so lovely in their bedroom. I've been lugging around boxes of game cartridges and old consoles for years, with absolutely no intention of ever pulling the systems out of storage. My entertainment center is a ridiculous mass of cables, and the oldest system I'm currently willing to hassle with (handhelds not included) is the Dreamcast. Plus, my older systems are in lovely condition, and I really don't want to expose them to the slings and arrows of outrageous toddlers. A quality console that reliably runs the majority of my cartridges (I'll yank out one of the four N64 consoles I've somehow accumulated later) would be a godsend. I stress quality here, because I bought one of those NES knock-offs that were all over eBay a few years back, and it was a complete piece of shit. This does not look like a piece of shit. It looks rather striking. I've had my eye on the Retro-Bit handheld SNES/NES system for a while now, so I think I've got a feel for the overall quality? Don't quote me on that. Or quote me with a question mark. Either way, I am intrigued. The Super Retro Trio will come with a pair of 16-bit game controllers, an S-video connection (fancy!), A/V cables and a power adapter. I'm not sure if I want to grab an HDMI adapter, or just buy the boys an old tube television to help teach them the value of high-definition. Oh, and it can also use this little baby... That's the Super Retro Adapter for playing Game Boy Advance games. It'll be $39.99 alone, or $89.99 bundled with the system. The Adapter and the Super Retro Trio will be on sale at the Innex website some time after it debuts exclusive at E3 2013 next month. Next month? Shit, I need to make sandwiches.

"You are a hunter, and your primary source of food is dinosaur meat." Sounds simple, right? The Stomping Land is a survival game where you hunt dinosaurs—which, on its own is cool enough, but the kicker is that you get to play this game with friends (if not enemies). Yes, it's multiplayer. While hunting small dinosaurs doesn't look difficult, fresh meat attracts larger dinosaurs (like maybe a T-Rex)—which means you have to get creative in how you hunt. This is where things start to get fun. You can salvage resources, build traps, and use tools and abilities that allow you to survive a little longer. Different dinosaurs behave differently, and players must learn how to best hunt or use them to their advantage. Since it's multiplayer, you can use other people to create elaborate traps and strategies that require cooperation—so it seems as if forming tribes is recommended. Ah, but here's the thing. Players can store meat, which ensures survival, but also lessens the number of huntable dinosaurs on the map. That's a problem for other tribes, and this is where the comparison to DayZ comes in. The potential for delicious tension and conflict between players is high here. Currently, the footage above is the game at a prototype stage. You can vote for The Stomping Land on Steam Greenlight here, if not donate to the Kickstarter here. The developers—who have worked on games like Skyrim and Dungeon Defenders—are hoping to raise $20,000. Here are some more screenshots.

Eyjolfur Gudmundsson is EVE Online's chief economist, part of a five-man team that monitors and regulates the market. Like real-life, EVE Online's economy goes up, down, and has recessions. CCP even has an Internal Affairs department to regulate those with too much information.

Project Awakened, Phosphor Games' highly ambitious make-your-own-superhero game, fell short of its $500,000 Kickstarter goal in March. After missing the mark on Kickstarter, Phosphor started its own fundraising drive, which also failed to meet expectations. Rather than continue raising money, Phosphor is putting the project on hold and refunding all backers. In an update on the Project Awakened site, Phosphor games thanks backers for their support, but says that "we need to put our funding endeavor on hold effective immediately," and that "everyone who pledged money will be receiving a full refund." It's a shame, because the core idea behind the game was solid, and the tech demos Phosphor showed were pretty cool. (You can watch one above.) Phosphor's CEO Justin Corcoran promises that they haven't given up on the game entirely, telling Polygon that while the game is on hold for the time being, "Someday, somehow, we will make this game." On their website, Phosphor mentions that "there have been some alternative funding options that have recently been presented to us, so please continue to keep an eye out on our Facebook page for future updates." Here's hoping that amounts to something; I'd love to see this game get made. Via Polygon.

EA has revealed that 11 new games will be coming to consoles and PC during its current fiscal year, including a new NBA Live and Need for Speed.

Harrison Ford transforms into Colonel Hyrum Graff for the very first trailer of Gavin Hood's Ender's Game. It's so damn shiny! We're already spotting loads of technology, Formic ships and the big beautiful Battle Room! Can't freaking wait. Ender's Game hits theaters on November 1st, 2013.

EA has announced that 3.5 million people have signed up for Battlefield 3 Premium since launch.

We've been enjoying quite a few Oculus Rift reactions/shenaniganries on Kotaku lately, but this guy jolting and bobbing around while on a virtual roller coaster is quite fun on its own, too. Imagine what it must feel like, standing up in a regular ol' living room but totally believing like you're dropping down from a huge height. I, apparently, can't handle real-life roller coasters anymore, but I don't know if I'm any more suited to them on the Oculus Rift. Here's to finding out! Brandon tries the Oculus Rift (roller coaster) [YouTube via NeoGAF] To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

A contestant accused of cheating in last year's scandal-plagued MLB 2K Million Dollar Challenge pocketed $25,000 in this year's contest, staged under a new format—and with the exploits patched out. William Haff, of Owatonna, Minn., is not a finalist for a $250,000 grand prize in this year's contest, but he still did better than in 2012, when he won an all-expenses-paid trip to New York to compete for a winner-take-all million-dollar prize. (He was eliminated before the final round). Haff was accused by a fellow gamer last year of using an exploit to throw his qualifying game. This year, 2K Sports broke up the prize pool so that more contestants would win cash prizes. The goal of the contest, for the past two years, is not only to throw a perfect game, but to throw "the most perfect" game, in which the effort would be scored according to an algorithm that factored in the pitcher's rating, the quality of his opposition, and details like the number of pitches thrown and number of strikeouts recorded. A perfect game is any contest in which one pitcher retires every batter his team faces and wins, over a minimum of nine innings. This year, the top-scoring game thrown for each of Major League Baseball's 30 franchises would earn $25,000, and there was no restriction on multiple winners. Four gamers recorded multiple top-scoring perfect games—Steven Welcome of Orland Park, Ill. (with the Orioles and Tigers), Michael Mazro of San Jose (Astros and Mariners), Sean Jaquith of San Jose (Angels and Mets) and Robert Romanowski of Lanoka Harbor, NJ, with the Diamondbacks, Marlins and Padres. Jaquith and Romanowski also were finalists in last year's contest but did not win the grand prize. Five other finalists also threw perfect games that did not qualify for either a franchise prize or a final round berth. Wade McGilberry, who took home $1 million in 2010 under the original first-guy-to-throw-one-gets-it-all format, threw three verified perfect games this year, but didn't score high enough to collect with any of them. Overall, 15 percent fewer attempts were made this year—"more than 785,000," 2K Sports said in a release, down from 942,895 last year—despite having four more days within the contest period. That could speak to MLB 2K13's status as a last-minute announcement, with a fraction of the marketing and publicity the series saw last year, and reviews (here and elsewhere) blasting the product as a reconditioned version of MLB 2K12. That said, more qualifying games were thrown—84 percent more than in the previous year, 2K said. So if the game didn't get any easier in patching out exploits—which allowed gamers to stock the opposing lineup with weak hitters—then it didn't get any harder either. The reappearances of so many previous qualifiers and winners seems to suggest this as well. Romanowski, the top qualifier, will meet with Oregonians Tyson Sanders and Justin Chavarria, and Brad Holland of Garland, Texas, in a four-way playoff during the week of the All-Star Game in New York. The winner gets $250,000. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Shuffle and draw your way out of a forest, score Batman and Bastion cheap and fly balloons with Sir Benfro for free.

Here's a little history lesson on this absurd caricature of grizzled badassery.

Gun Commando got our attention thanks to its Doom-style pixely shooting. It kept our attention with its clever gun-leveling system.

Touch fuzzy, get dizzy, spit truths about the SNES platformer that Patrick didn't realize needed any defending in the first place.

The man responsible for the fantastical elements and chilling creatures of film classics like Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans passed away today. The official Facebook page for the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation has a detailed obituary that details highlights from the master artist’s biography and credits. With simple clay and an eye for precision, Ray Harryhausen laid the groundwork for how modern-day special effects look. For my part, I’ll never forget being mesmerized when I was home alone at eight years old with Jason and the Argonauts on an old giant, color TV. After years of reading Greek mythology and having only the occasional still drawing to fire my imagination, Harryhausen’s work helped me imagine what the Olympian menagerie looked and moved like. The jittery menace of skeletal warriors, the sinuous creepiness of his Medusa, the water-breathing terror of a scaly Kraken… Harryhausen’s creation burned permanent impressions in my mind. And the minds of entire generations, too. Certainly, scores of video game artists and designers owe their careers to him and, indeed, franchises like God of War have the Harryhausen DNA coursing through the ichor-filled veins. In an age where digital creativity enables epic creations without physical effort, stop-motion animation—and the design, sculpting and movement-mimicry skills that come with it—is nearly a lost art. So, rest in peace to a true icon.

They aren't afraid to slap on some patriotic clothes while dealing out body slams, either.

Yeah right, buddy. I've made out with too many grotesque monsters over the years to fall for the old "it won't hurt" line again.

I do not understand why I am playing this, so here's a kitten with a steamed bun on its head. Bread Kittens is one of those free games I don't remember downloading but suddenly find myself playing more than I probably should. Set in the world of Catlandia, an evil pet food corporation is brainwashing the planet's cats, robbing them of their free will. Seeing as free will is the most annoying portion of cat anatomy, one would think that is a good thing, but apparently there's charm and grace to be found in scratching up the furniture and vomiting colors unlike anything you've eaten on the beige rug, so we've got to catch them all. The only way to protect the felines of the world from mind control is baked goods, and you just happen to be a baker. You travel the world, battling your cats against the wild variety, earning the experience points, cash and flour needed to bake capture bread (for growing your crew) and armor (for protecting them). It's one of the silliest things I've played on iTunes. The animation is simplistic. The combat is a timed button press. The baking is just a vehicle for a timer, which can be sped up using currency. The music is repetitive. There is a lot not to like about Bread Kittens. But I can collect 116 cats, name them, and bread them. That's how it's been with Bread Kittens over the past couple of weeks. I play for 30 minutes, promise myself I'll never play again, and then... That's a bagel. And a pancake. With butter. Until my actual cats allow me the pleasure of crafting fresh-baked bread product that fits around their tiny, annoying skulls, Bread Kittens will stay on my iPad. It's such a guilty pleasure for me I was forced to turn myself in to soothe my conscience. That's what separates us from the cats. Bread Kittens Genre: Baking, Pet BattlesDeveloper: Bake450Platform: iOSPrice: Free Get Bread Kittens in iTunes

Bet you didn't know there were Snakes on Mars. There are also Sharks and Jets, apparently.

The Ring girl crossed with Princess Peach is a terrifying thought. Consider your childhood memories—and every console connected to a screen—forever ruined. Or at least ruined for the next seven days, after which you realize you were being ridiculous. C'mon, guys, seriously. The Ring girl isn't real! ...Right? Um, I'll be in my bunker for the next seven days. (Naolito via Gamefreaks) Also credit to CrazedLunaticEsquire for my headline joke! To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

Playing online games often exposes one to the worst of humanity. Within this den of scum and villainy you’ll find twelve year olds who act like four year olds, dudes that would be the worst drinking buddies, and silent, useless teammates that clearly have no f***ing idea how to play this damn game. Of course, when gamers act like jerks, it’s not always their fault. Sometimes it’s the game’s fault. Kotaku’s review of Monaco arrived a week after the game’s launch, which left it in the unique position of being able to review the nature of the community that formed around the game. To Stephen Totilo, who reviewed it, it seemed as if the online world had suddenly become human. Of course, YMMV. I’m sure there are trollish Monaco players, and when the game is released on the Xbox 360 this Friday (May 10th), the community might be very different. But for now, let’s take a look at some of the design considerations that were taken that may have something to do with the positive nature of Monaco’s online community. Requiring Cooperation Is a Good Thing When I first pitched Monaco to a big publisher, it was rejected because “games that require co-op don’t sell well.” And perhaps this is why online games are so often fraught with uncooperative communities. There is a big difference between co-op games that require cooperation vs. games that simply reward it. A game like Team Fortress 2 rewards cooperation but doesn’t require it. If your teammates care more about teabagging than stealing the briefcase, that’s their prerogative and you have no choice but to ignore them or find a new server. If a player wants to ignore the fact that they are on a team, they can essentially play in a go-it-alone style. Deathmatch trumps Team Deathmatch. This attitude tends to be contagious, too — once the cooperative social fabric starts to break down, it’s hard to build back up. But in Monaco, the game requires that all four players pile into the same staircase in order to progress, every sixty seconds or so. And when a player dies, the group can’t progress until someone has gone back to heal their teammate. This forced cooperation both reminds players that they are working towards a common purpose, and probably wards off the players that simply don’t like cooperating. Between those 60-second segments, all hell breaks loose. Thieves will run around, collecting coins like mad. A hectic playstyle trumps strategic play, which trumps slow and stealthy. But, on a team of only four, players can often agree before they start the heist how they want to play. These types of agreements tend to break down in games with larger teams. Intimacy Helps A more intimate cooperative experience lends itself to a more human interaction. Other players in Team Fortress 2 may as well be bots, while the co-op partner in a game like Journey feels distinctly human, because there is only one, and he or she is within your field of view most of the time. In Monaco, you remember when your buddy saved you with a smoke bomb, and you care that your teammate doesn’t die, because, if he does, it will be your responsibility to revive him. In TF2, players rarely stay together, in Monaco, even when players split up, you always know where they are. Intimacy, proximity, and responsibility all create a social fabric that makes players behave like humans. Getting The Ideal People To Love The Game Of course, the social fabric of Monaco isn’t all the result of game mechanics... it’s also the result of who we’ve marketed the game to, who we let into our beta test, and who has fallen in love with the game. While we were beta testing Monaco, we asked players to take a quick survey on the game. We asked them what they liked, what they didn’t like, what confused them. We also asked them to rate the game from 1 to 10. We wanted to find out which beta key giveaways were bringing in our most passionate users. We generally found that the highest proportion of 9 and 10 ratings came from RockPaperShotgun and Reddit users. Our lowest ratings came just after we did a giveaway via Destructoid. Many of those RockPaperShotgun users became Beta VIPs—we gave additional keys for those people to give to their friends, and we helped them set up the fansite www.monacohideout.com. Those passionate, mature voices helped us police our various YouTube videos, kept things running smoothly on our forums, and helped to introduce the game to the world from the perspective of fans rather than developers. They established the tone, and the overall community has maintained that fabric. Building a co-op game is really not all that different from designing a commenting system for a blog. How do you allow people maximum freedom while maintaining a level of maturity and collaboration that is often missing from anonymous internet cesspools? In Monaco’s case, it came down to demographic targeting, required cooperation, and intimacy. Or maybe people just read the message I put in the credits. Don’t be nut-punchers. Even on the internet. Andy Schatz is the co-creator of Monaco. Find out more the game at the official Monaco website or on Facebook and Twitter.

Hear the savings. A quick search will reveal that reviewers, audiophiles, and consumers all rain praise on the Audio Technica ATH-M50 Headphones. At $102 today, they're sitting at their lowest price ever. Our friends at Lifehacker put them in their Five Best Headphones write-up, while The Wirecutter chose them as The Over-Ear Headphones [They'd] Get. Amazon reviews are extremely positive, while both HeadRoom and Head-Fi rank them higher than much more expensive cans. If you draw the best fit line through all the pro coverage (and consumer response), the ATH-M50 Headphones are the ones to own. [Amazon] Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. This is a Moneysaver One-Shot, a post focusing on a single deal, sale, or category. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm EST for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.