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The launch trailer for Fuse is sufficiently shooty and explodey. Insomniac's new co-op shooter will be out May 28 for Xbox 360 and PS3.

If you get plastic surgery, that's fine. Go for it. Just know that you're not getting plastic surgery on your DNA. Recently in Wuhan, China, a man surnamed Huang (not pictured) was worried that his wife was being unfaithful. He phoned Wuhan Central University's Hospital and asked for a paternal test for his three year-old son. Mr. Huang, 27, was bothered that his young son looked nothing like him or his wife, and ultimately brought his family with him to the hospital. "I have great confidence in my looks," he told the hospital, Cnhan reported. "My wife is also a beauty, but this child looks nothing like us. I highly suspect that he's not mine." Mr. Huang's wife finally admitted that she had a variety of work done on her face before meeting her husband; she apparently was "average" looking before she got plastic surgery—whatever the heck that means! "I was afraid that if my husband found out, he wouldn't want me any more," Mrs. Huang is quoted as saying. The husband looked at old photos of his wife and realized that, yes, the child was theirs and decided a paternity test was unnecessary. There's an infamous ad (above) for a Taiwanese plastic surgery clinic, which is often being posted with this story as it makes its way through cyberspace in Asia. The ad's tagline says something like, "If you have plastic surgery, your only worry is having to explain it to your children." Turns out, you might have to explain things to your spouse! 丈夫欲做亲子鉴定妻子坦白“做过整容” [CNHAN] Eric Jou contributed to this article. To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Downloadable Content can be a controversial topic. On the one hand it can feel like a developer/publisher nickel and diming the player, and on the other, it can also help to enhance a game experience and lengthen a game's play-life. In this week's issue of Japanese gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu, developers and users were presented with questions about their thoughts on DLC. 　 Developers 20 different game developers were questioned. Developer names were excluded. 12 developers responded that they are actively distributing DLC, 6 developers have distributed DLC in the past, 1 had no plans to ever distribute, and the remaining developer answered "other," but no specifics on what that meant. Half of the developers noted an increase in DLC users compared with last year. Asked what they thought the benefits/appeal of DLC was, here is a sample of developer answers: "[DLC] allows for increased user satisfaction, revenue and slows the flow to the used game market" "It allows us to release timely content in conjunction with real-world events and holidays." "DLC can lead to players revisiting games they've already put down. DLC also gives us an opportunity to develop unique collaborative content that we hope will allow users to have fun outside of the main game." "DLC released after a game's initial release lets us answer player requests and fine-tune a game, making for a more complete experience." "Periodically releasing DLC lets players enjoy games longer." "We can offer players the option of 'an alternative way to play.' The fact that it doesn't have to be mandatory, but rather an added bonus is also a plus." "It allows users to play added elements not in the main game." "By releasing DLC, we can further show a game's appeal." 　 Users On the user side of the spectrum, 476 people responded to the questionnaire. Of those who answered, 95.9% answered that they had played DLC before. Of those who had, roughly 60% responded that they played only free DLC. Asked how much they were willing to pay for DLC, an overwhelming 65% of responders answered that how much they would pay would have to depend on the content rather than a strict cut-off price line. In terms of their thoughts on DLC, here's some of what people said: "[I'll buy] anything that will make a game that scores 100 score 120." Male in his 40's "Please abolish DLC that 'unlocks already existing data in a game.' I'd welcome anything that adds data." Male in his 20's "So long as it's additional content outside the main game, I welcome anything from items to scenarios!" Female in her 20's "Things like additional costumes or jobs would help maintain motivation for a game. But I'd prefer if it was free." Male in his 30's "It's sad to see that user-friendly games that 'contain everything' are on the decline." Male in his 30's "I often use DLC that adds new rules or ways to play to a game." Male in his 40's "I appreciate the additive properties of DLC, but I don't want DLC that ends up costing more than the main game itself." Male in his 20's "I think the problem is in the timing of release. It seems like distributors are miscalculating the time someone who would buy DLC spends playing a game." Male in his 20's 　 　 DLC is still a young paradigm, with a lot of room for improvement (I'm looking at you EA and Namco Bandai). While there are definite problems, there is also a lot of potential for good as well. What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts. ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

A new achievements listing suggests Crysis 3 is suiting up for multiplayer DLC. Posted on the typically reliable Xbox 360 Achievements, the listing indicates a 250G pack featuring four maps called Creek, Crossing, Ascent, and Coastline, and two modes called Frenzy and Team Possession. The mention of a flag points to Team Possession being a CTF variant.

The DLC apparently also has a new weapon: the boat oar. We mainly wanted to mention it because the associated achievement is called 'Totally Oarsome.'

EA hasn't announced any upcoming DLC for Crysis 3, although developer Crytek previously indicated it had "big plans" for post-launch content. We've reached out to EA for more info.

There's a webpage titled "Panopticon" which, for a while, was counting down to something. Now, a trailer's been revealed. It features a dystopian-looking London, ridiculous HAL 9000 headbands, and lotsa fighting. Beneath the video is a date, May 21, which is when Sony will (presumably) tell us more.

Siliconera reports that Sega has trademarked the name "Sonic Lost World" in Europe. Normally this is where I'd make a joke about dinosaurs, but Lost World is also the name of a jungle ruins-themed stage in Sonic Adventure. Coincidence?! ... Yeah, probably.

While McDonald's in many countries is trying (feigning?) to be healthier, in Japan, the fast food chain really doesn't seem to give a crap. If anything, McDonald's is running fast and hard to unhealthy. Super size, Japan! For the past few weeks, there have been rumors that McDonald's Japan is rolling out a huge size for French fries (which actually is replacing another super large size called "Share Potato"). Today, as IT Media reports, it's finally official. Dubbed "Mega Potato", you are looking at two large size fries in one wide friggin' container. Two large fries usually cost around the equivalent of US$6 in Japan. These, however, are priced at 490 yen ($4.80) and will be on sale until late June. But will Mega Potato inspire French fry headaches in Japan? でっかいぞ！　マクドナルドが特大サイズの「メガポテト」発売 [IT Media] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Spotted by Frankie from Hobby Media, this intersting "Game Box Truck" model is a mobile arcade. For my money, a vehicle with arcade games sure beats an ice cream truck! Model's art is above, and here is a look at the acutal piece: The 1/24 scale "Game Box Truck" is priced at 1890 yen (US$18) and will be out this June in Japan. Check out more on Hobby Media. Links below. Aoshima Game Center: il camion salagiochi! [Hobby Media] Aoshima: GameCenter Truck - Fiera di Shizuoka 2013 [Hobby Media] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Armageddon was released worldwide in 1998. But since 2007, every year without fail, there has been a new "Armageddon" movie in Japan. What the hell is going on? If you were in Japan during the late 1990s and early 00s, you'll know just how popular the disaster flick Armageddon was. You couldn't walk past a karaoke parlor without hearing the Aerosmith song blaring (even now, can still often hear it!). Over a decade later, Armageddon is still going in Japan, but the world just won't end. These movies, however, have no direct connection to the original Hollywood blockbuster. In August 2007, Japanese distribution company Albatros Film released Armageddon 2007, a straight to DVD release with box art and a title that merely resembled the 1998 Michael Bay flick. Each following year, leading up to 2012, Albatros did the same, titling each one アルマゲドン or "Armageddon" in Japanese. Online in Japan, people began to comment on how the box art for these movies looked like the posters for the original Armageddon or for the movie Deep Impact, which was also released in summer 1998. Both movies used black, teal, and orange motifs—a color palette that many video game companies also love using today. The slew of Armageddon movies carry Japanese tag-lines that said this was the Earth's last day or asking if there was going to be a tomorrow. Seeing the annual movies lined up, with their doomsday tag-lines, became somewhat of a meme in Japan, with people posting the last Armageddon box art and wondering when the hell the world was actually going to end. These were not sequels! They were totally different movies, made by different filmmakers and different studios in different countries. The movies were repacked versions of American, Canadian, and British disaster flicks that, well, were knockoffs of the original Armageddon. And while they had apocalyptic titles, they weren't all called "Armageddon". For comparison with the top image, check out the original movie box art: While the cover art is different, Alien Armageddon is the only movie that has the same title in Japanese. It's also the only one that actually uses the world "armageddon". Still, these original movies are certainly disaster flick cash-ins—but just not as obvious as their repackaged Japanese counterparts. The straight-to-DVD Armageddon flicks have apparently done well enough in Japan to warrant copycats (though, pretty sure nobody I know here has seen any of these movies). They're probably the movies that people accidentally rent. Another distribution company, Odessa Entertainment, released movies like Armageddon Panic (known in the West as Before the Fall) and Armageddon 20XX (aka 20 Years After), and even used a similar cover design to the string of Armageddon flicks. One company, Matsutake Home Video, even released Armageddon 2012 in 2010 (2010!), which, two years later, forced Albatros Film to title its release Armageddon 2012: Mercury Crisis. You know, so people wouldn't get confused. So far in 2013, Albatros Film has released one Armageddon film, titled Armageddon of the Dead. It is a re-release of horror sci-fi flick Solid State. Of course, the original poster didn't have the word "armageddon" or the color orange, but its Japanese re-release sure does. Will the world end, though? Not when there's a disaster movie to release next year, it won't! 地球に隕石 落ちすぎワロタｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ [ぴょんてな] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

What is it made of gold? Damn right it is. Pure gold. To mark the 10th year anniversary of its Saint Seiya figure line, Bandai is releasing a solid gold Sagittarius statue. Tokyo's Ginza Tanaka oversaw the creation of the statue, which is valued at 60 million yen (US$585,247). The gold alone weighs two kilograms! According to NariNari, Bandai has plans to put the pricey piece on display sometime this year in Japan and in Taiwan. If you are curious about how big the statue is, check out Mainichi's photo coverage. 6000万円の“射手座黄金聖衣”、「聖闘士星衣神話」10周年記念で製作 [NariNari] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

We're gonna need a bigger Moneysaver. Looking for the current Moneysaver roundup? Click here. Note: I've been warned there may be a delay in all these going live, but we should be good to go by 3:30am ET, and hopefully before. Don't panic. Welcome to a (very) special 3am ET Moneysaver. Amazon has an absolutely massive sale starting right now, and we've got insta-coverage first and just for you. All told, there are well over 1500 games on sale, with some going live over the next couple days. I know, because I just looked through them all to pick out the best ones for you. Some good things to know are that almost all of these activate on Steam, and I'll mention if they don't. If you see a game you want in a bundle, it's probably on sale individually too. I'll also call out when there's a Mac version on sale. If you're looking for a game not listed here, it's worth a search. [Amazon] On an unrelated note, I just got back from the Star Trek Into Darkness sneak premiere in IMAX, and it's decidedly less Lindelof'd than other Lindelof joints. Bundles • XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Civ 5 Gold + Civ 4 Complete ($20) • Battlefield 3 + Battlefield 2 Complete + Bad Company Ultimate [Origin] ($20) | Individual games also on sale. • Bioshock 1+2 and Spec Ops: The Line ($10)• Bioshock 1+2 ($5) • Arkham Asylum GOTY + Arkham City GOTY ($11.50) | Individual games also on sale • Deadlight + Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet + Mark of the Ninja + Toy Soldiers + Iron Brigade ($10) | Yes, $10, seriously. | Individual games also on sale. • Command Conquer Ultimate Digital Collection ($10) | 17 games • Fable III w/ DLC + Fable: The Lost Chapters ($10) • Sonic 1/2/3/4+Knuckles+CD+7 others ($10) • Mortal Kombat 1+2+3 ($2.50) • Dead Space 1+2 [Origin] ($8) • F.E.A.R 1+2+3 ($10) | Individual games also on sale. • Star Trek + FREE Inversion ($25) Single Games • Battlefield 3 Premium Edition [Origin] ($25) • Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition ($7.50) | Finally about to dig into Demon's Souls myself. • Saints Row the Third: The Full Package ($12.50) • Rayman: Origins ($19.50) • Beyond Good and Evil ($6.50) • Driver: San Francisco Deluxe ($16) • Age of Empires III Complete ($10) • Metro 2033 ($5) | It's been $3 once, but it's definitely worth five. • Mass Effect 3 Digital Deluxe ($9) Oddworld• Odyssee ($0.75)• Exoddus ($.075)• Stranger's Wrath ($3)• Munch's Odyssee ($1.65) • Brutal Legend ($10) • The 7th Guest ($2.50) • Dead Island GOTY ($5) | It's been $4 once or twice, but yes, it's worth five. • Need for Speed: Most Wanted [Origin] ($15) | Have hell remembering which NFS is the current game in the series. • The Walking Dead ($10)• The Walking Dead [Mac] ($10) | Snagging this for myself. Marathoned this over the weekend and loved it. Can't believe I waited so long.• Deus Ex: Human Revolution ($5)• DLC The Missing Link ($3.75) • Alice Madness Returns Complete ($7.50) | Includes American McGee's Alice • Company of Heroes GOTY ($5) • Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed ($7.50) • Ghostbusters ($5) • The Cave ($5) • Renegade Ops ($3.75) | Super fun, grab it now if you missed out. DLC • Battlefield 3 Premium [Origin] ($15) | For those that missed that super short-lived Gamefly sale the other day. • Assassin's Creed III Season Pass ($15) | Individual DLC's also on sale.

This is the art of Fred Augis, who works at French developer Dontnod entertainment, the guys behind Capcom's upcoming Remember Me. It's a beautiful game, and Augis is part of a very talented team, so this is a real treat. Prior to joining Dontnod, Augis worked freelance, and has also been employed at places like Owlient (a French Ubisoft subsidiary) and adventure game developers Wizarbox. You can see more of Fred's work at his CGHub page. To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

This is Remembering. It's a "poetic exploration game driven by sound". It's finished and available for download here. You should go ahead and do just that. It's a wonderful little experience. By stripping away all but the most basic visual elements, the game - and your interpretation of its world - is powered mostly by sound and music, as you explore stages experimenting with music and keeping an ear out for the changes that slowly bleed into the soundscape. Remembering recommends you play it with headphones. You really need to play it with headphones. Remembering [Game Site]

A long-standing rivalry between two sci-fi fan groups in England boiled over earlier this week when Star Wars and Dr. Who fans had a "bitter exchange" outside a convention. When the treasurer of Norwich Star Wars Club Jim Poole turned up and tried to get the autograph of Dr. Who actor (and Bill superstar!) Graham Cole, all hell broke loose. He was asked to leave the convention, which was hosted by rival group the Norwich Sci Fi Club, and when he refused both police and security were called. The cops turned up having been told there had been an assault, but after a brief investigation found there had been nothing but nerd rage. So both groups got a...talking to, and were warned to keep away from each other. Crisis averted. Police break up rival sci-fi fans’ feud [Metro]

We grab our flute, put our shoulder down, and charge...limp our way back into BioForge.

This is far from the first time this rumour has popped up. We heard last year that Microsoft was planning this, but as the reveal of a new Xbox console - and a new Windows update - draws closer, we're hearing it again. This time a little more convincingly. The Verge reports that Microsoft will soon be killing off the points scheme in favour of a universal "gift card" that could be used across all of the company's platforms and be purchased in real-world currency. It's also shared images of what it says are the cards in question, which clearly show an Xbox controller on the front, as well as space for actual dollar amounts. Please be true. Of all the things we've had to adjust to this console generation, having to constantly convert points into dollars - and being stuck with leftover points in your account after a purchase - have been about the stupidest. We've contacted Microsoft for comment, and will update if we hear back. Microsoft killing off Xbox Points in favor of currency and gift cards system [The Verge]

Team Fortress 2's scout class has a secondary weapon called "Bonk! Atomic Punch". A tumbler of the item went for sale on the Valve store last week, and today Reddit user Rajorface uploaded pictures of the 'warning label' on the Tumbler. As you might expect, the fine print is ridiculous. Here's a picture so you can see for yourself, though you can find some more in the Reddit thread. Thankfully, this thing only holds what you put in it—it's a tumbler, after all—so you don't have to worry about any of this being true. Fine Print on the new Bonk Tumblers [Rajorface]

Nintendo of America has muscled in on the world of "let's play" videos on YouTube, inserting commercials into user-made clips that are of "a certain length". Seems that late last year the publisher registered with YouTube as a "partner", registering their content with the video service's database. While Nintendo claims (via Go Nintendo) that "most fan videos" will be unaffected by this, longer clips "featuring Nintendo-owned content" will now have Nintendo commercials inserted before/after/during them. This move impacts those who make advertising money streaming "let's play" videos on YouTube, because those commercials no longer make money for the person streaming the clip. Nintendo's full statement on the matter is below: As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property. For more information please visit http://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/f... Nintendo comments on YouTube 'Let's Play' situation, adding ads to certain videos [Go Nintendo]

Eight years. Eight long years. When Grant Davies and Nick Kovac started Endgame Studios in 2003 they couldn’t have imagined how long it would take to release their dream project. Broken promises, regrets, sacrifice. This is Fractured Soul, the cursed project. The game that history couldn’t contain. It was only when the numbers were placed on the spreadsheet that the intensity of the stakes became clearly defined. Grant Davies and Nick Kovac left secure jobs at Torus Games in Melbourne with the kind of enthusiasm some would describe as youthful arrogance. They wanted to make new video games. They wanted the freedom and flexibility their day jobs couldn’t provide. But it was only then, battle hardened — broken down by the meetings, the crushing disappointments, the broken promises, the frown lines on their foreheads — that the difficult truth became apparent. “We were in so much debt,” says Grant. And not just the kind of debt that sinks companies, or debt that makes corporate, professional life difficult. The kind of debt that had the potential to sink both of them personally. The kind of debt that had the potential to sink both of them personally. “The worst case scenario was basically death. Absolute personal bankruptcy. “It’s frightening that you could put yourself into that situation because of a video game.” One video game. Just one. A video game that started life as a simple idea scribbled on a piece of paper in April 2004. A video game released on the 3DS e-shop in September 2012. Fractured Soul, the Australian video game that took eight years to build. Endgame Grant Davies is on the show floor at PAX East in Boston Massachusetts. He’s demoing Fractured Soul and he is smiling. Considering he spent the majority of the last eight years of his life working on one single video game, he’s about as relaxed and unassuming as any human being could be. “Yeah, it’s a platformer.” “It’s kinda inspired by Megaman.” “Have you ever played Ikaruga? It’s a bit like that with platforming.” It’s been a long road for Grant, but Endgame studios is tantalisingly close to the endgame. Fractured Soul. Born alongside four other high concepts, scribbled on A4 paper in response to the announcement of the Nintendo DS. Bare bones ideas created by two young developers bored with work for hire and the restrictions of licensed properties. Two screens. What the hell can we do with two different screens? What can we do with touch? In 2004 these were fresh, pertinent questions and Grant Davies and Nick Kovac thought they had answers. The idea they liked best was ‘Slidatron’, a dimension bending game aimed at the handheld kids market. Sildatron was the game that, years later, would eventually evolve into Fractured Soul. Both Grant and Nick played a lot of Ikaruga and became a little obsessed with the idea of gaming simultaneously across two different separate universes. Both agreed that using two screens to represent this sort of dynamic made perfect sense. They began with the idea of making a shooter but later thought, ‘hey, we like platformers, let’s make a platformer’. It made perfect sense. Both Grant and Nick spent the majority of their days at Torus working on licensed platformers. They had the expertise, they had the concept. All systems go. They had the expertise, they had the concept. All systems go. They had everything except a publisher. “We sent our ideas off to the very few publishers we knew,” says Grant. “We didn’t get many replies. “I guess Slidatron was always on a bit of a hiding to nothing.” Grant and Nick knew publishers. They even knew a handful of people at those publishers. They just didn’t know the right people and, to begin with, this made things difficult. Almost impossible. The Cursed Project It started auspiciously. Despite Grant and Nick’s inexperience, Slidatron still attracted smatterings of publisher interest. The concept was fresh, the DS was hot. At the time focusing on Slidatron seemed like the best approach. Seemed. This is when the delays began. In hindsight Grant refers to Slidatron as a cursed project. Each forward step was accompanied with stress and difficulties. The simplest issues began strange chain reactions that ultimately resulted in mammoth delays. For example — Film Victoria, a local government funding agency, were quick to get onboard with Grant and Nick’s vision with Slidatron. Both sides filled out the paperwork, said all the right things, but even that relatively simple process hit the proverbial roadblock. Grant had made the approach for government funding for one simple reason: Slidatron hadn’t attracted any concrete publisher interest and he wanted to take a working demo of the game over to E3 in order to get the right people excited. Both he and Nick saw this funding as a way to kickstart Slidatron as a project. Make the demo, go to E3, find a publisher, finish the project. Rescue the cheerleader, save the world. Rescue the cheerleader, save the world. It should have been simple. It should have been simple. “We got Film Victoria on board but even that was delayed because we had a solicitor that was really dragging his feet. It took ages to get access to the money we needed to build the prototype. So that squeezed the deadline. “Then we had a programmer who agreed to help us, but he pulled out at the very last minute.” The clock was ticking. The hard deadline of E3 approached. Grant and Nick were completely cash starved. The Film Victoria money came in, eventually. But it was too late. The end result was an intense last minute scramble to complete the Slidatron E3 demo. “It ended up being basically just Nick and I, working night and day for a few months trying to get this prototype together,” remembers Grant. “We were still working on the prototype at 3am on the morning we had to fly out to LA. We had to be at the airport at 6am.” With two hours sleep, running on raw enthusiasm, Grant and Nick packed frantically. They hopped in a cab and rushed to the airport, praying they’d caught any game breaking bugs. Little did they know that bugs would be the least of their problems. The Slam Dunk “Like the Titanic casting off from Southampton,” says Grant, “we had a fatally flawed design, and we were headed for iceberg E3.” Grant finds it difficult to describe precisely what they expected from E3. Both he and Nick had agonised over every decision — how difficult should the demo be? Should it represent a vertical slice of Slidatron, should it focus on one solitary mechanic? “In almost every aspect we made the wrong decision,” says Grant. Both he and Nick expected ‘gamers’. People who would appreciate the vision of Slidatron. Publishers are gamers, right? Surely they understand how games work? Slidatron was an innovative platformer with unique mechanics and a marketable aesthetic, but none of that mattered. None of it. Slidatron was an innovative platformer with unique mechanics and a marketable aesthetic, but none of that mattered. “We quickly found out that many publisher reps didn’t really play games or even have an understanding of how games worked. A lot of them were from marketing and business backgrounds. And if these guys don’t instantly get the game it wasn’t going to go any further.” The disappointment was palpable. “It was shocking. It was stunning actually. It really surprised me to get that insight into what the publishing side of the business was like. We had no experience. I was expecting to meet people who would embrace what we had done, but to find out that the publishers really had little idea was surprising and a little bit disappointing as well. “It was almost like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real.” There were multiple strange situations, incredibly positive meetings where Grant and Nick walked out believing they were close to a publishing deal. In their very first meeting one middle-aged rep declared that Slidatron was a bonafine “slam dunk”. Great, let’s move on to the paperwork thought Grant, let’s get this show on the road! "I was expecting to meet people who would embrace what we had done, but to find out that the publishers really had little idea was surprising and a little bit disappointing as well." That same publisher ignored Endgame’s emails, didn’t take their phonecalls. They never heard from him again. Grant and Nick left E3 broken and bewildered. Slidatron: the cursed project. “It felt as though we needed to rethink everything at that point: the art style, the IP, the way the gameplay was evolving. But we had no money left.” Curveball The year was 2007. Grant and Nick kept their heads above water with work for hire, bit jobs on larger Australian projects. But Slidatron lingered, it never lay dormant long enough to gather dust. Pitches to publishers were made and rejected for reasons that confused Grant: they didn’t like the characters, or the game was too difficult. These were issues that could easily be fixed, thought Grant, just give us the chance. Game Connection in San Francisco represented a last throw at the dice. A small exhibition designed to help smaller companies network and share contacts, Grant and Nick hoped the event would work in their favour. It was focused, far less chaotic than the scattershot lottery that was E3. Together they polished up their E3 prototype, tweaked the difficulty and headed to San Francisco with the intention of giving Slidatron the send-off it deserved. These were issues that could easily be fixed, thought Grant, just give us the chance. But Game Connection went better than either of them could have possibly hoped. Grant and Nick left San Francisco with two very serious offers. Endgame studios had just been dealt a serious curveball. For once they had a ‘good’ problem. “Little did we know that we were about to make another ill-fated decision,” says Grant. One deal, from Koch Media, was 100% concrete. That contract was in writing, all it required was signatures. But Koch Media would only agree to distribute Slidatron in Europe, which was a bitter pill. The second deal was global, the kind they’d dreamt of, but there was only verbal confirmation this deal even existed. Grant and Nick wanted the global deal. Badly enough to take the risk. “It was a difficult decision, because the other guys were a good publisher, they had a good presence in Europe and we really wanted them to do it,” explains Grant. “We just wanted them to do it in the US as well. Had I known what I know now, I might have been able to go back to them and say ‘let’s talk about a global deal’. But I was naive, I didn’t push that angle strongly enough.” Then, of course, it all came apart at the seams. “Later on the guys said, ‘oh the market is falling apart, now we can only do a budget game and we can only do it for half the original budget’. “We just looked at each other and said, what do you want us to do, give you half a game?” “We just looked at each other and said, what do you want us to do, give you half a game?” Grant and Nick were already in the process of ramping up production. Plans had been put in place; at this stage there was no margin for error or reduced budgets. Frantic emails were sent back and forth in an attempt to come to some sort of compromise, but eventually the trail went cold. The deal was dead. Window Of Opportunity But then Grant remembered another conversation, a vague discussion that seemed promising, but he took little for granted nowadays. He remembered that hard lesson: nothing was a ‘slam dunk’ until you had paperwork. Still, it was worth chasing up. A publisher had taken him aside and said, ‘don’t sign anything until you come back to me’. Grant was cynical but with no deal on the table he was desperate. He made the call. “I told him, look our deal’s falling through, you interested?” Turned out they were. Incredibly, after turning down a written offer and having a seemingly iron clad verbal fall through at the last minute, Endgame studios were achingly close to yet another deal. Conversations were had, emails went sent. Before they knew it there was another contract on Grant’s desk. Then, disaster. The US dollar bottomed out; the money being offered by the US based publisher instantly lost a substantial portion of its value. It was no longer enough for Endgame to make the video game they wanted to make. “We were close to inking a deal. Days or weeks away,” says Grant. “We said, look the exchange rate has kinda fallen apart since we last spoke, we just can’t do it for that money anymore. “And yeah, he just stopped replying to my emails.” But then in a strange coincedence, after months of ignored phone calls and unanswered meeting requests, Grant randomly bumped into a representative of the publisher at a conference in Lyon. “I saw him walking around the show, so I just cornered him,” says Grant. “He said, look the development guys love the game. They’re desperate to do it. But the marketing guys want to do these casual games as a new direction.” The ‘marketing guys’ won. The ‘marketing guys’ won. “He described it as this huge argument within the company,” explains Grant. “I dunno if that’s true or whether he was trying to make me feel better, but that’s how he put it.” It was a heart-breaking situation with no silver lining. Slidatron’s window of opportunity was rapidly shrinking. It was a brand new IP in a DS market plagued with piracy, a market in the process of migrating towards smartphones and tablets. There was a sea change afoot and Slidatron was caught in a rip. Four years since its inception, and four years from eventual release, Slidatron was caught between two drastically different worlds. And unless something was changed quickly it would vanish without a trace. Fractured Soul “We kept on pushing”, says Grant. “To see if we could find another publisher, get something to happen. But it was incredibly frustrating and financially damaging to continue going through those situations.” Money was tight. At one point Slidatron had the potential to break Endgame studios financially. Beyond that, it had the potential to ruin the founders on a personal level. “We put a lot of money into this game,” explains Grant. “When you have a publishing deal you have an expectation that you will receive a certain amount of money over the life of the project. With publishing deals they tend to stack a lot of that money towards the end — to make sure you finish the game, to mitigate their risk. “So if they don’t follow through you have to wear it. And we wore a lot of money throughout the life of this project.” But by mid-2008 Endgame Studios had stabilised its business to the point where making a third major push at Slidatron was a possibility, but Grant wondered if he really had the stamina to endure the cyclical stress and heartbreak that came with it. He believed in the idea, the high concept of Slidatron, but perhaps not the execution. Both Grant and Nick agreed that something drastic had to be done if their dream game was become a reality. This was the moment when Slidatron evolved into Fractured Soul. “We thought, Slidatron is an original IP,” explains Grant. “Kids don’t go out and buy and original IP. It would more likely be people our age with disposable income — people who seek out new IPs and are informed. “Aside from anything else, we simply couldn’t return for another year to pitch exactly the same product to the same publishers.” Slidatron became Fractured Soul. Out went the bespectacled child protagonist, in came a Mega-Man inspired lead. The pace of the action became more frantic, the tone more mature, with the intent of making Fractured Soul appeal to a broader audience in their 20s and 30s. A new Game Design document was rattled up in time for Game Connection in 2008, but the crumbling DS market still couldn’t sustain a new IP, no matter the tone, the protagonist, or the target market. It came to be a familiar story. Endgame’s timing was brutal. As Fractured Soul began to take shape, the DS market continued to implode. Publishers ran for the hills. As Fractured Soul began to take shape, the DS market continued to implode. Publishers ran for the hills. Despite the downturn, Grant and Nick enlisted the help of Film Victoria for a second time, and used those funds to acquire yet another agreement, with N3V. For the first time since the game’s inception, Endgame had a proper publishing deal and the cash to propel Fractured Soul towards completion. Grant and Nick were fully energised. They hurtled towards release with an energy they hadn’t felt since creating the E3 demo. Then, once again, it all fell apart. But unlike previous deals there was zero drama. No Sophie’s Choice, no grand conspiracy; just a handheld market in transition, an industry crippled by piracy and a wide scale loss of confidence. When it came time for Endgame’s publisher, N3V, to find distributors for Fractured Soul there was a strange, discomforting silence. “When N3V got round to talking to the distributors they said, ‘oh the DS market is dead, forget it. No originals anymore — it has to be licensed’. So the game never went out on the DS.” It was the closest Fractured Soul would ever come to receiving a traditional retail release. The Last Resort The Fractured Soul story does not follow a traditional trajectory. This is normally the part where a good natured investor swoops in, rescuing the game from certain death, or a Kickstarter campaign is launched to paint over the cracks of troubled development, but Fractured Soul’s reality was far more complex. Grant and Nick were left with a finished game and no means to distribute it. The DS market was dead and initial hype for the 3DS dissipated quickly. Any and all pitches for new IP on Nintendo’s (initially) troubled platform were routinely dismissed. So In 2012, when Endgame finally made the decision to distribute Fractured Soul digitally on the 3DS eShop, it wasn’t done with a flourish. It wasn’t a grand, powerful gesture representative of a sweeping zeitgeist. It wasn’t a glorious moment where the little guy heroically snatched the reins from cruel moustache-twirling publishers. It was the last resort of two men who simply wanted their game to be played. “We were just battle weary,” admits Grant. “We just figured out that we could do this on the eShop; use a little extra money and get it over the line.” Grant and Nick’s redemption story came with the reviews. Almost instantly, Fractured Soul became the critical darling it was always destined to be. It was released in September 2012 and reviewers fell in love. “We were really lucky,” says Grant. “We had 50 reviews giving the game 80 or above, and a few nines as well. “It felt good to bypass publishers and get the kind of reception it did. They told us that Fractured Soul was worth something. That was vindication.” “It felt good to bypass publishers and get the kind of reception it did. They told us that Fractured Soul was worth something. That was vindication.” It was this success that drove Endgame to try its luck on Steam Greenlight, where the game currently sits, waiting and hoping for a future release on Steam. “I’m just glad we saw it through to the end,” says Grant. “I’m glad in the end that all the publishing deals did fall through because now we are the masters of our own destiny. It was absolutely horrendous at the time because of the financial strain. We were in so much debt, but long term it’s been the best for us.” The Sacrifice But Fractured Soul’s critical success doesn’t conveniently render a wasted decade meaningful. The heroic, and ultimately dishonest stance would involve writing off eight incredible strenuous years of development as a ‘learning experience’. No regrets. It was meant to be. Yes, Grant and Nick learned a lot during Fractured Soul’s herculean development period, but those lessons are tarnished by very real, anxiety inducing regrets. Eight years it took. “Going back ten years there are a number of things that I wish I could do differently,” admits Grant. “Not just with the product, but with everything.” Choosing a verbal agreement for global distribution in the face of an iron clad agreement with Koch Media is Grant’s biggest regret. “That was the big one,” he says. “It was heartbreaking to make that wrong decision. We would be at Fractured Soul 3 or 4 by now if we had signed that deal. I have regrets about that. Absolutely. The only silver lining is that the game was a better product as a result of us not releasing it at that point. But what did we sacrifice? What did they sacrifice? Years spent working on sequels, building up the Fractured Soul IP into something commercially viable, something meaningful. Time working on something dazzling and new? What did they sacrifice? It’s a question with real pathos, with the power to fracture psyches. A question with a difficult answer or — perhaps more terrifying — no answer at all. “Where would Fractured Soul be today? That’s what we reflect on,” says Grant. “But instead? We’re just starting that journey.” Fractured Soul was recently one of six games selected for PAX Australia’s Indie Showcase and was recently given an honorable mention for ‘Best In Play’ at GDC Play. You can vote for it on Steam Greenlight here. This article was republished with permission.

The Joker gets three skins from The Killing Joke in an eponymous skin pack from Injustice: Gods Among Us; this is the Red Hood. The two others depict Joker at the beginning (in tourist photographer attire, when he shot and paralyzed Barbara Gordon) and the end of the famous 1988 graphic novel.

Some game-makers want you to feel empowered when you play their creations. Other would love it if you felt wonderment. Matt Lopresti gets excited if the people playing his experimental puzzle game Split Tree argue with each other or get embarrassed. I interviewed Lopresti—who’s currently at previously worked on pretty/snarky portable puzzlers Glow Artisan and ASYNC Corp.—at New York University’s No Quarter event, where he showed his game alongside Killer Queen, Bennett Foddy’s Speed Chess and There Shall Be Lancing. Split Tree is confusing at first, looking like an odd riff on Tetris. But, suddenly, it dawns on you that something very different is happening as you play. Lopresti explains the motivations behind Split Tree in the video above. It’s the kind of game that makes people playing it squeeze next to each other and get loud, then quiet, and then loud again.

Who needs The International when you've got pro action as hot as this? #bigplays

Here's a neat speech for Remember Me, the dystopian game where a corporation manages to own the memories of nearly the entire population. The speech is delivered by Antoine Cartier-Wells, founder of that corporation—and listening to him talk about memories, it's not difficult to see how easy it would be to sway public opinion on giving a corporation so much power. Granted, it's not just his charisma. Having the ability to share and delete memories, a power which his corporation can provide via brain implant, is seductive too. The music in this video is by Stephen Anderson, who you can check out here, and the footage is by Devin Super Tramp. The Social Revolution - Remember Me [devinsupertramp]

Today Google officially announced Google Play game services, a suite of features aimed at making Google Play a real cohesive game platform rather than a just a random pile of titles in no particular order. Top developers like Glu Mobile and Gameloft are lining up to enhance their Android titles with achievements, cloud saves, leaderboards and real-time multiplayer using Google+ friend circles. Games like World of Goo,Super Stickman Golf 2, Beach Buggy Blitz, Kingdom Rush, Eternity Warriors 2, and Osmos are already using the new services, which should make Google Play more competitive with the likes of Apple's Game Center. Glu Mobile was kind enough to send along a batch of screens showing the new services at work within Eternity Warriors 2, as seen below. Cloud saves are a particularly welcome addition. As a person who plays across several different Android devices, being able to pick up where I left off is going to shave hours off mobile charging frustration. And who knows, maybe I'll finally dust off Google+ and start adding people to my circles again. Publishers and developers seem eager to integrate the new features. As I was writing this a press release from Gameloft showed up in my inbox, boasting integration today for Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, with Dungeon Hunter 4 and Asphalt 7: Heat getting integrated in the coming weeks. It's certainly a step in the right direction for Google Play. Now all we need is the ability to sort games by release date. Seriously, how hard can that be?

Benjamin Rivers is the designer on the choose-your-own-horror game Home, coming soon to iOS. Patrick called him up, and they wouldn't stop talking about horror games, movies, and everything in-between.

This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go. Say the name High Voltage, and your first thought might be the Conduit series of first-person shooters (or this). While the studio is indeed known most recently for The Conduit, one of its other ideas has been languishing for quite some time, namely Animales de la Muerte. Originally slated for WiiWare, and then for XBLA and PSN, the game has finally found a home on iOS.

Renamed Zoombies: Animales de la Muerte, the game tells the story of two children who must save a Mexican zoo from being overrun by a horde of zombified animals. To do this, the kids utilize every available tool of destruction, ranging from axes to shotguns, roman candles and even the occasional dollop of guacamole.

Zoombies is the most festive zombie game I've ever played, and it's also one of the most immediately entertaining.

Google's mobile directions wonder, Maps, is about to get a whole lot more useful.

Here are just some of the many ways in which you will HIT THAT GUY.

A BitTorrent study tackles some common misconceptions about video game piracy, mainly finding that that the "previously reported magnitudes in game piracy are too high." It also (unsurprisingly) finds that there is a correlation between a game's review score on Metacritic and how much activity that game sees on BitTorrent.

As with all Gran Turismo release dates, assume the possibility for delays is strong. Also, CAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSS.