Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

They're made of paper. Amazing stuff. Reader VJIII, aka shieldcore, sent these in. I'm in awe. I mean, the papercraft itself is impressive enough, but sticking lights in there is just too much. Some of these are small papercraft models. Others are papercraft outfits for figures. Some are human-sized papercraft cosplay! shieldcore [DeviantArt]

Dan LuVisi - who we only just featured on our daily concept art showcase - is to thank for this "realistic" portrayal of Buzz Lightyear, which puts Star Command in the hands of the US government and turns the cartoon hero into someone you could easily imagine kicking ass in a 2013 video game. To Infinity and Beyond - [DeviantArt]

Here's a silly take by Freddie Wong on what would happen if we had a dog for president. In this reality, all cats are eradicated until only one cat is left. The Last Cat. Naturally, the last cat on Earth is also a rather cute cat. And naturally, there's also a group of select people devoted to keeping it alive at all costs. And yes, there are gun fights. Dramatic? Maybe. Also kind of hilarious. Remember this when you see posters for Mr. Ruffles 2016, people. Feel free to talk about cats, dogs or just about anything else here in this open thread or over in our spiffy Talk Amongst Yourselves. The Last Cat on Earth [freddiew]

We fire up some You Don't Know Jack, and prove that, indeed. we truly don't.

Last week Lay's decided to award the U.S. potato chip prize to Cheesy Garlic Bread, the least interesting of the three "Do Us a Flavor" competitors. A little over a third of America voted for it, allegedly. That leaves a little under two-thirds of America to the mercy of price-gouging jerks on Amazon and eBay. Who is going to spend $24.95 plus shipping for a bag of Chicken and Waffles or Sriracha potato chips? Not me, that's for sure. I only went as high as $20 with shipping on eBay for a bag, and I will savor that bag until Lay's comes to its sense. Hopefully that'll happen before the rebellion.

Dark, a shooter where you play as a vampire, still looks as cool now as it did when we initially saw that it wasn't about being a sparkly, sensitive bloodsucker. After all, you will eat your enemies to regain health. You will teleport. You will become invisible and stalk your prey. You will hypnotize your targets. This trailer showcases a number of powers available to you in the game, making it seem as if you have a variety of approaches available to you when it comes to problem solving. Anyone reminded of Deus Ex a bit here? With cel-shading, that is. The game releases this summer for PC and Xbox 360.

GeoGuessr, as you might have guessr'd from the name, is a straightforward game. You get dropped in the middle of a random location on Google Street View and have to guess, based on your surroundings, where the hell you are. The closer you are, the higher your score. Pretty simple right?The difficulty varies wildly. Sometimes it'll drop you in front of a sign that reads "Welcome to Rio De Janeiro", and other times it'll strand your ass on a dirt road that could be almost anywhere. One thing is clear though: It's stupidly addictive, and perfectly simulates the sensation of waking up in the middle of an unfamiliar, foreign country after a week long bender. I...I can't stop playing it, you guys. Play it here, if you dare.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #23 - People who’ve worn the webbed mask have abandoned being Spider-Man before. The cover of this week’s Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #23 riffs on the classic John Romita image from Amazing Spider-Man #50, when Peter Parker quit. And I want to say that Ben Riley stopped web-swinging because of angst, too. But I could be wrong about that. What feels different about Miles Morales’ abdication of the Spidey identity is the proximity of trauma to the event. Unlike Peter Parker not being there for Uncle Ben, Miles was there when the bad stuff happened. His wounds must feel especially raw. And then you’ve got people from all sides pressuring to talk about his feelings and/or start being Spider-Man again. Writer Brian Bendis and David Marquez make Miles feel so much younger and vulnerable than Peter Parker and that makes me feel for the kid even more. You know he’s gonna get back in the suit and you feel so, so bad for him in this moment. Batwoman #19 - Another Bat-family reunion happens in this issue. Don’t expect anything happy, though. It’s a testament to the writing of this series that I’ve kept reading even when co-creator J.H. Wiliams isn’t drawing it. I felt the last arc was a bit over-written but the emotional punch of this issue is a turn for the better. I like how the end of this issue assembles a group of partners/loved ones around Kate. This story beat happens even as Batman’s family unit is crumbling and dissipating after both the Death of the Family storyline and the murder of Damien Wayne, the most recent Robin. If it were a fair fight, you might even think that Batwoman has a chance in taking Batman on. But it’s never a fair fight when Batman’s involved. Fatale #14 - The thing to love in this issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s dark magic noir series is how human the monsters feel. Usually, anything derived from Lovecraftianmaterial generates villains that feel aloof and removed from human concerns. But the way that the Nazi Cthulu entities curse and react to the conflicts in these pages makes them more engaging—and worth hating—than the usual cult-of-bad-guys. This installment also fills in a bit of the lore for the Fatale universe and, of course, makes everyone in this book feel even more wonderfully damned.

Imagine if the most annoying parts of the internet—spam emails, viruses, things that exist to steal your identity—were real people. Real people trying to get into your house. Ugh, no. Things could get ugly quick, as shown by this video by HapstanceFilms. Well, until the porn lady comes around. Then you won't even realize you're being screwed with. The Inbox | HAPSTANCE [HapstanceFilms]

Before I knew a single piece of information about Lords of the Fallen, I knew I wanted to play it. Whatever is going on in this image, I want to be a part of it. Has that ever happened to you? I didn't know Lords of the Fallen was an upcoming role-playing game from Poland's CI Games. I hadn't a clue the project was being led by Tomasz Gop, former senior producer on The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings. Hell, had I read the official description of the game, due out in 2014 for next-generation consoles and PC, I probably would have simply made a note to wait for something more concrete than generic-sounding plot and promises I've heard before. Lords of the Fallen is a hardcore action-RPG featuring an advanced combat systems and robust class skill trees. Set in a richly created fantasy world where the Gods have failed mankind, players will take on the role of a human named Harkyn who sets out on a quest to stand against an apparently unstoppable supernatural force. Players travel across a world that is deeply divideded by those that follow and others that resist, the Fallen God. Along their journey they will be faced with a series of decisions that will alter both the world and their character thus dramatically impacting the storyline. But no, I saw the art first, and now I am intrigued. An image that chances are won't even appear in the final product. That's some powerful mojo. Luke Plunkett regularly celebrates the work of concept artists in his Fine Art series, through it I've developed a healthy respect for those often unsung heroes. They're thrust into the front lines of the game marketing war, and sometimes they manage to win the battle without a single screenshot fired.

Google will start selling an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 with stock Android next month, but is it worth the cash?

Many of us get kind of teary-eyed when thinking about how Mass Effect has allowed us to transfer Commander Shepard across three games over the last five years. That pales in comparison to Pokémon, which, barring the early games, allows you to transfer creatures for over a decade across many titles—a feature which blogger Cunzy1 1 has made ample use of. Dactylocer, which is Cunzy's name for his Omastar—a fossil type Pokemon—is a companion that he's been using since Pokémon Fire Red. That'd make the Omastar at least a decade old—older once Pokemon X/Y come out. "Even though I know that it isn't 'my Omastar' being transferred from one game to another, it's merely the (genetic) code being replicated in the next game and permanently deleted from the old game I can genuinely say I have a sentimental attachment to this guy (and it is a male) who has now been my digital companion, more accurately, the digital companion of many of my trainers through each game, for just under a decade," he explained on his blog—where he chronicled the adventures the Omastar experienced across all the different games. He recognizes that while this Omastar isn't the best Pokemon—or even the best Omastar—it doesn't matter. It's his Omastar. Today, Kill Screen interviewed Cynzy1 1, who revealed that the reason he's picked Omastar for this is because he's a paleontologist, and Omastar is a fossil type that's a parody of ammonites. Makes sense. Mind, not everything is romantic about this. The Omastar he's transferred is actually the second Omastar. Remember, you can't transfer over Pokémon from the original titles—so there was an Omastar before this one. That, and, the Omastar has mothered a "couple hundred other Omastars. Sometimes with her own sons." Yeah. Many of us are guilty about the breeding thing with our own 'mon I'm sure, but it's still kind of ick to think about. I'm curious, though: have you transferred your Pokémon across all games? If so, which and why? Share your stories—surely, while this sort of thing is kind of rare, Cynzy1 1 can't be the only one that's done it! GIF above is from this must-watch, although unrelated, video. An Omastar is for life [That guys a maniac] Meet the man who's been playing the same Pokemon character for a decade [Kill Screen]

The internet is kind of like a classic confessional - except it's not a box, it's a lot brighter and everyone can hear what you have to say. Still, we asked a handful of independent developers for their thoughts on what exactly makes a platform effective, and they spilled it all, dissecting the pros and cons of the most popular, current models of distibution.

Today, we feature answers from Ridiculous Fishing's Rami Ismail, Canabalt's Adam Saltsman, Octodad's Philip Tibitoski, Retro City Rampage's Brian Provinciano and others. This group of developers had specific thoughts about Steam, the Humble Store, Apple's app stores and the Android hub, Google Play.

This follows yesterday's batch of answers from the Steam, Humble Store, iOS and Android camps. Let the confessions begin:

These might be the most important words in comics: "Hey, have you read that?" The medium's lifeblood has always been the word-of-mouth that passes from one reader to another. The only query that might surpass the above is "So, what'd you think?" Here's where we put the discussion into Panel Discussion. Of course, we want to hear from you. Please join us in the comments below. This week, pop culture crtitics Douglas Wolk, Graeme McMillan and myself talk about The Private Eye #2 and Julio's Day. One happens in the near future while the other takes place over the last century but people have things to hide in each comic. Read on to see why we think is good or problematic about each work. Evan: So we've got Private Eye #2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin and Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez on tap this week. Graeme: Two very different comics, those two. Douglas: That is very true. Graeme: Let's start with the beautiful, garish Private Eye. Evan: Yeah, garish. That's a great way to put it. I love how the book fuses all these familiar genre elements: a flying car straight out of Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D., a Cthulu mask, brass knuckles out of a Mickey Spillane story. Douglas: I really, really like The Private Eye. I can't describe its concept as easily as I can describe other Brian K. Vaughan comics, but I love the LOOK of it—Marcos Martin is one of those artists who aren't nearly as well known as they ought to be, but he's SO good at playing with the page's space, and he's gotten right into the groove of landscape-format art. Graeme: Douglas, doesn't this seem like a series that's far more ABOUT the visuals than any other BKV comic? The writing in it is very sharp (of course), and I love the genre mash-up, but this is ALL about the art for me. And the colors. I can't imagine this in print, the colors are so vibrant. Douglas: And I love the old "do the worldbuilding first, then don't explain it and let readers figure it out as they go along" trick. I don't think Vaughan's done that before—even Saga tends to be very easy to grasp—and I'm enjoying going back over the first two issues and puzzling it out. Graeme: I feel like this second issue benefited from not having the info dump of the first. Evan: And Martin seems to have down a subtle shift in the framing in this issue. The first issue had more wide-angle shots—better suited to the world-building—and this one was more close-ups and talking heads. Graeme: As if BKV got that out the way and was then comfortable enough to leave everything else to us. Douglas: Side note: I'm very happy to see people who've done a lot of mainstream comics doing stuff on their own, online, and figuring out how to get paid for it—see also the Lady Sabre Kickstarter that's doubled its initial goal in about a week. Evan: Douglas, I spoke to Rucka about that very topic last week. Douglas: Graeme,very true! It's definitely visually driven in a way that Y the Last Man and Ex Machina weren't (and Saga kind of is). Graeme: Evan, the framing in this felt (appropriately) more influenced by noir movies, but entirely detoured by the colors/costumes. The focus on visuals feels consistent with what the book is about, though - The surface gloss and how it hides what's underneath. Douglas: There's also a lot of wordless panels and sequences in this one. Martin's a really strong visual storyteller—he can make images that are very simple but that you want to linger over long enough to catch what's happening in them–and so he's getting to do a lot of the work here. Graeme: I wonder if Martin will continue to evolve his pacing/structure as the writing becomes more intricate and the story goes on. Evan: Yeah, the scene where PI takes off the eye-black was oddly effective Graeme: Look at how the colors shifted down a gear in that scene, too. Douglas: As I understand, Saga is becoming one of the big backlist success stories of the moment; I wonder how many of its readers are aware of The Private Eye? They've been doing remarkably little to publicize it. Like, you'd think they'd at least email people who bought the first one to let them know the second one's out. Graeme: This is a visually SMART book. Douglas: (The downshift followed by the mostly-white wordless panel: YES.) Graeme: Yeah, the strange release schedule/method here fascinates me. Like, the first one almost advertised itself: HERE ARE THESE GUYS DOING THIS CRAZY THING. But for future issues, how can they repeat that impact? Evan: Vaughan says in the afterword that it exceeded expectations, so that's good, hopefully? Graeme: Are they hoping we'll just continue to be all "Oh, wow, have you SEEN this?" Douglas: That's possible. And it's possible that we will—! Graeme: I think it's good, yes. But I also wonder what the plan is to keep this going, for want of a better way to put it. This feels too good to just... run quietly, I guess? Evan: I certainly hope this isn't something that gets abandoned for more stable, better paying work Graeme: Like, I know they keep saying no print plans, but, man, I'd love to have this in a hardcover when it's done. Douglas: I think it's meant to be about ten episodes. Graeme: Evan, Martin quit Daredevil for this, so there's that, I guess? Evan: Wow, okay. Douglas: I'd like to see that too, but I also admire the idea that it's just a place to work out a new form… straight to digital and designed first and foremost with tablet reading in mind. Evan: Agreed. Evan: Reading it in landscape felt like reading a Sunday color comics strip in a newspaper years ago. That déjà vu was compounded by the fact that the journo cop looks a lot like Dick Tracy. Douglas: I also love the fact that (SPOILER ALERT) the "cover" image this issue is also the final panel of the story! Graeme: Yeah, I really enjoyed that. It's funny… that was also the gimmick of a lot of DC's WTF covers, where it DIDN'T work. Evan: Yeah, that feels unconventional, just like so much else about the book. Graeme: Maybe the plus is that the cover here is just a cool image with no baggage until you get to that final scene? Douglas: That makes sense. Evan: Absolutely. Graeme: There's no "AND THESE GUYS — WILL SHOOT OUR HEROES!" blurb to spoil it. All told, it's one of those "Well, if only ALL comics were this good" things, still. Which reminds me: Did you see the review of Daredevil that was essentially "I wish this book wasn't so good, quality is boring"? Evan: None of you asked but I still feel the need to say that my favorite line from this comic was "Easy with my Christian, handsome." Douglas: Shall we tackle Julio's Day? Graeme: Yes! I am very curious what you two made of it. Douglas: I encountered "Julio's Day" in its original incarnation—in the second volume of "Love & Rockets," where we usually only got, I think, a page an issue, the idea being that we got lots of little fragments of this guy's life and had to piece them together. That's one thing that Gilbert Hernandez does in a LOT of his work: strip the story down to tiny moments that imply a lot more, and let readers work out how they all fit together for themselves. Graeme: It's something that I was initially thrown by here: - The time jumps between scenes with no immediate signifiers. It was one of those things that made me realize how much I rely on storytelling crutches elsewhere. Douglas: So I wondered if this version—100 pages long (one for each year of the character's life, although not one PER each year)—might connect the dots a bit more. And... it mostly doesn't! I kind of feel like I should sit down with it at much greater length and work it all out. I caught a few ways that things tied together, but I'm sure I'm missing most of them. But it also doesn't have the insane momentum and scope of some of the Gilbert Hernandez things I like best—Luba or The High Soft Lisp or Love & Rockets X. Graeme: It is surprisingly complex, but also surprisingly... uneven, I guess? It felt very scattered to me, and not intentionally. Unlike you, Douglas, this is probably my favorite Gilbert yet. But then, I haven't read Palomar, and I find his work problematic in other places. It's his obsession with uber-large breasts, I admit. It's a weird fetishization thing of his that distracts from everything around it. Douglas: Not a lot of uber-large breasts in this one, though, gotta say. Plus: gay male protagonist! Evan: This was my first contact with the work and it felt scattered to me, too Douglas: Well, Gilbert is totally problematic! Gilbert tries hard to be problematic! Graeme: Evan, how long did it take for the book to make sense to you? Asking because I felt it to be "too long," if that makes sense. And, to Douglas, yes. Thankfully, the fetishization was kept to a minimum. Although, his cartoonish qualities weren't. For example, Julio's father's sickness felt like it came out of another book. Evan: I got the gist right away and liked it overall but struggled to care about some of the characters. Graeme: That's the unevenness I was referring to before; there wasn't a consistency in tone. Douglas: One thing I find fascinating about Beto's stuff is that he can make "tacky/sleazy" a deliberate tonal choice, and does it way more often and for longer than most other "highbrow" cartoonists. Graeme: I'm torn on the gay male protagonist bit. On the one hand, yay for not sensationalizing it! On the other, Julio seemed more asexual than gay and his reaction to the grandson was... odd. Evan: The broad humor didn't always mesh well with the sleazy, fantastical and horror beats Graeme: Douglas, his consistency with tacky/sleazy as aesthetic is one of the reasons I have such problems with his work overall, even if that wasn't the case here. Douglas: Evan, yeah, I think that's the thing: there are a lot of Gilbert's characters, even very minor ones, who are permanently part of my brain now, and not many of the characters here are anywhere near as lively. Graeme: And Evan, yes, the humor and the horror and everything else didn't make sense. Evan: I did like how the family lived on the fringes of the 20th Century. It reminded me A LOT of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude. The weird almost-incest, characters with the same names and weird proclivities, home-as-a-black-hole-you-can't-escape, the outside world as an exotic dangerous place, nature as this karmic equalizer … Graeme: Evan, I think you have managed to make 100 Years of Solitude sound amazingly unappealing by accident. Evan: Well, I don't mean to. But those things are there, right? Douglas: Also, it's not really a secret that G.H. is really into 100 Years of Solitude–there's a conversation about it fairly early in Heartbreak Soup! Douglas: Graeme, my take on Julio's sexuality is that it's interesting to have a really, really, really repressed protagonist around whom everything else in the story revolves. But that also creates story problems... Graeme: I feel that even his repression was repressed, though; it felt less as if he was repressing his own urges as Gilbert was avoiding the subject. Douglas: So the thing I really loved here, as always, was Hernandez's artwork. That page where the grandson is walking in the snow out in the middle of nowhere and the clouds are just a few hatched lines: SO GORGEOUS. Graeme: Gilbert-as-artist does environment really well. The various transition scenes that just focus on the surroundings and weather are all lovely to me. I think he's stronger at that than at character work. Douglas: What this really made me think of is this: you know how you might have a favorite art-film director? And sometimes they make masterpieces, and sometimes they make this weird little slightly malformed slip of a movie that you're still fond of because it's so obviously theirs? Even if it's not actually anywhere near as affecting ast the masterpieces? That's where I am with Julio's Day. Graeme: Yeah, I can see that. I almost have the opposite reaction: I liked it, but what I found off-putting was what I would term Gilbert tics. Evan: I just wanted it to feel more... lyrical? Like that on book of his a few years back, with the orange groves? Douglas: I tend to like artists for their tics in general... the things that sneak into their work even when they're trying for something else. Evan you're taking about Sloth! Graeme: Douglas, I agree wholeheartedly about liking artists for their tics. It's just that there are also artists whose tics I don't like, you know? Douglas: Yeah, this one's his Another Woman rather than his Hannah And Her Sisters, I suppose. Graeme: But both are... valuable? I don't know; I suspect this may give me more of an "in" into Gilbert's work in some way. Douglas: Which would make Fatima: The Blood Spinners his... Melinda and Melinda? Graeme: I know that my first thought when finishing it was "I REALLY have to read Palomar." Marble Season is Radio Days, then? Douglas: ...It totally is! Marble Season is his cute, simple, lightweight story of a particular happy moment in childhood. Evan: I haven't read Marble Season yet. Douglas: Which means that Palomar is Annie Hall and… please somebody stop me now, thanks! Evan: Ok, we're done here. Graeme: Next: Why Jaime Hernandez is actually Julie Delphy. Evan: Hahahaha!

Today we chat with Valve about trading cards, but Axe just won't shut up!

Today we chat with Valve about trading cards, but Axe just won't shut up!

I'd say the exclusive head on Sideshow Collectibles' new Harley Quinn figure has a face only a deranged lunatic could love, but I'm worried about what that says about me. Sporting a full cloth costume, a giant wooden mallet and her trademark jester headgear, the standard version of Sideshow's premium format rendition of Harleen Quinzel is a fair representation of what the character looks like in the cartoon and comics. She's the Harley Quinn we see wandering the halls of comic book conventions in large numbers — easy mode Harley. Anyone can put on a mask and be recognized as the Joker's girl Friday. But there's much more to Harley than a mask and a mallet. There's the sass — the most deadly sass you ever did see. I'd say attitude, but that brings to mind early 90s video game mascot characters wearing sunglasses and surfing on sharks. She doesn't have an attitude — she is an attitude. She's this attitude, right here. Such a brat. She's perfect. Standing 21 inches tall and weighing 9 pounds, the premium format Harley Quinn is now available for preorder at Sideshow Collectibles. You've got to have mad love for the character to shell out $359.99, but that face is enough to make anyone go a little crazy.

Sometimes, things just take a little longer than you'd expect. Take The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. 2K Marin began working on this tactically-minded shooter based in the XCOM universe around the same time Firaxis began its own work on its straight-up strategy game based on the original XCOM titles. However, we learned of 2K Marin's project long before XCOM: Enemy Unknown was ever unveiled to the public, mostly through a series of trailers and developer-controlled demos. The reaction to Declassified (then more ambiguously known as just "XCOM") was mixed, with some expressing distinct concern over the game's shooter gameplay, given the franchise's tradition as a pure strategy series.

Set in 1962, The Bureau aims to reveal the origins XCOM.

Then, following a demo at E3 2011, 2K went radio silent. As the PR campaign for Enemy Unknown began to ramp up, many wondered if 2K Marin's game had simply been cancelled in the wake of the excitement surrounding Firaxis' game. As it turns out, it was actually the polar opposite.

Over the last couple of years, 2K Marin has been revamping significant parts of The Bureau in anticipation of a release date later this summer. Initially presented as a first-person shooter with third-person perspective moments tossed into the heat of battle, the developers decided during the course of development that it was all just too much. The constant darting in and out of perspectives made The Bureau unwieldy in a way that nobody intended, so it was decided that the game would revert to a strictly third-person perspective. Normally a publisher might bristle at funding such a fundamental change to a game already deep in development, but as has been the case with other recent 2K projects--most notably, the long-delayed, but generally acclaimed Spec Ops: The Line--2K Marin was granted the time and resources necessary to make the game they wanted.

The Bureau made its first appearance since 2011 at a recent press event, which also marked the first time anyone outside of 2K and its playtesters had actually been given the opportunity for hands-on time. I spent maybe 30 minutes playing through a few battle encounters and story beats, and came away pretty pleased with what I saw.

In The Bureau, you play as William Carter, an almost comically grizzled federal agent of the newly formed agency dedicated to eradicating the alien invaders that have begun to take over America. These aliens are, of course, of the same general type and design found in Enemy Unknown, a conscious decision made in collaboration with Firaxis. According to the developers, the two teams worked together to ensure that the aesthetics and content of the two games lined up, while still offering alterations inherent to The Bureau's status as a kind of prequel to the whole franchise.

Taking place in 1962, The Bureau follows the story of the first alien invasion on U.S. soil, AKA the event that helps spark the formation of the international XCOM seen in Enemy Unknown. In this invasion, giant towers have sprung up in numerous U.S. locations, and in the level we were shown, residents in the vicinity of these towers have been turned into mindless, mostly functionless zombies. Not the flesh-eating kind, mind you, but more the morose kind that just sort of wander aimlessly, trapped in the moment before whatever's infected them completely takes hold. If you ever saw the old Kids in the Hall movie, Brain Candy, it's basically the same comatose state that those who took Gleemonex suffered from, albeit without the benefit of being trapped in their happiest memory.

The mission I was allowed to play took place in a small town in New Mexico. Carter and his squadmates are dropped in to find out what happened to a previous team that had gone missing in the town. Right away, trouble arrives in the form of sectoids and mutons who are out for any human blood that dares wander into their field of view.

Battle Focus lets you command your squad on the fly, which, even with slowed time, can make firefights pretty hectic.

While The Bureau is, at its core, a pretty traditional third-person shooter, the tactical nature of the game's squad combat gives it a bit more of that distinctive XCOM flavoring. Pressing the "Battle Focus" button will bring up a command wheel in battle, which you can use to direct your squadmates to specific cover points, task them with specific targets, and have them engage special attacks. Carter himself was equipped with a kind of "lift" attack, which would bring a single enemy helplessly off the ground to get shot by everyone, whereas other team members could knock numerous enemies over with a single shockwave, or deploy turrets to help distract big bads away while also dealing decent damage. All of these attacks have significant cool down times, however, so you have to be mindful about when you choose to employ them.

Making smart use of your squad is integral to success. You can lone wolf it to a certain degree, as your compatriots will at least find quick cover and shoot back at enemies sans any orders from you. However, your purpose on the field is as much to command as it is to attack directly. 2K refers to your role affectionately as a "combat quarterback," where you're calling the plays on the field. If you're careless about how you deploy your associates, they'll end up badly injured, or worse.

In other games, you'd likely just get any fallen friends back at the end of the level and that would be that. But this being an XCOM game, perma-death is very much in play. You will have the chance to revive your men on the field, which in my experience wasn't too difficult to do, so long as you were careful about your movement. On normal and easy difficulties, revived squadmates will jump right back into the heat of battle. On hard, I'm told that the enemies will stay down for the duration of a mission, and only become available after your next trip to the command center. If you fail to revive a team member in time, that character will die for good. As with Enemy Unknown, you'll be able to add new recruits to your squad and level them up over time, so if you have a particularly strong squad member and he goes down for good, that's going to sting.

I never lost an ally during my battles, though that was mostly due to rigorous reviving and me being as careful as I could not to get blown away in the process. Granted, I only was given access to a pair of relatively early battles in the game, and while I went up against a few fairly tough enemies, I found that simply keeping a steadfast eye on the battlefield was enough to make sure my team never got overwhelmed. It helps that using the Battle Focus slows down time to a crawl, ensuring that you have just enough time to get each guy to the cover point you want, while not getting shot to hell in the process.

You will find plenty of familiar alien scum to eradicate.

What I played of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified was pretty fun, and that's coming from someone who doesn't play a lot of tactical shooters. Commands are easy to use and generally quite effective, and the actual shooting--whether you're using earthbound weaponry, or any of the alien guns--felt good. Having never actually played the game when it was still a first-person thing, I can't say as to whether the shift in perspective has made any noteworthy improvement, but in its current state, the action on the battlefield felt fluid, frantic, and exciting.

If I have any concerns, they really only pertain to the game's difficulty balance and progression, which I wasn't able to really grasp onto during my brief time with it. If the developers at 2K Marin can manage to force players to stay on their toes, and constantly adjust strategies from encounter to encounter, then The Bureau could be awesome. If it relies too heavily on the same tactics and strategies throughout the game, then it could easily become a bit tedious.

Bear in mind that I am no XCOM purist. I only barely played the originals, and as such, any outrage that might have sparked when 2K first announced this shooter never managed to infect me. However, having enjoyed Enemy Unknown quite a bit, I was mostly pleasantly surprised by how The Bureau manages to evoke the basic vibe of that game while shifting both the time period, and the mechanics pretty drastically. It's a shooter that takes place in the '60s, but it still feels like the XCOM name totally belongs attached to it. We'll see if others agree when the game launches this August for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Enticed by the much-hyped heads-up display but really not jazzed about living a life on Google+? Well Facebook and Twitter will be there, along with a host of other apps.

Add Deus Ex and Epic Mickey creator Warren Spector to the list of people who think the video game industry should stop caring so much about Metacritic. In his column for GamesIndustry.biz this week, Spector goes after Metacritic, a website that aggregates review scores for movies and video games and ranks them with a single number, or Metascore. Spector criticizes the video game publishers and developers that treat those Metascores like holy numbers and use them to affect bonuses and contracts. "Metacritic, at best, rewards games that are conventional and well understood by players and critics alike," Spector writes. "New and challenging things are, by their very nature, disruptive and easily misunderstood. Aggregation of opinion, at best, offers hope and guidance to people whose goal is to maximize profitability but little to people whose priorities lie elsewhere or who depend on the constancy and relative predictability of the status quo." Spector's column is smart, and worth reading. It also doesn't touch upon one important point: both video game publishers and developers manipulate Metacritic scores to serve their own goals. The problems with Metacritic's influence on the game industry—even beyond the flawed idea that a game's quality can be summed up with a number—are deep and entrenched. For more, check out our in-depth investigation into the serious flaws of how the video game industry uses Metacritic.

It's no secret that female armor in games can sometimes be ridiculous and unrealistic. The Repair Her Armor Tumblr recently put together a list of thirteen types of ridiculous female armor you come to expect in MMORPGs—the commentary being less serious than it is for fun. "Don't take it too seriously," they write. "But I am getting tired of these outfits, though." While you should visit the site for the full list, here's a smaller selection: 1. The classic Bikini Armor. If you’re lucky you might get an actual shoulder-pad! If the designers even bother doing something more than just a regular bikini, you might get some accessories with stilettos! Exactly what I want in battle. For a extra nice touch; cameltoe. 2. The Lingerie ”Armor”. There’s absolutely nothing that protects you, but it looks really uncomfortable and nice in bed battle! Complete with some feathery, useless shoulder pads! 3. The ever so Stylish Swimsuit! This is usually the armor you get before you get the upgrade Bikini Armor. Bonus points if a choker, thigh-high boots/stockings and a half mask is included! 4. The Abstract Art. Yes, we’re all wondering how the hell that works; how does that thing stay on, how does she walk with those shoes, how on earth is that supposed to protect her and why is half of her naked? All those questions is a part of the costume! They say art say more than thousand words.. or something! 5. The Dominatrix and/or Slave outfit! For those kinky players out there! Complete with leather or latex, fishnets, chains, chokers and whips! Bonus points of the stilettos are sky-high! 6. The Stereotype Shaman or Barbarian! Because she’s clearly so wild and ~exotic~ that she doesn’t need clothes! Best worn with tiny loincloth and underboob-straps! Clothes I'm forced to wear in the majority of MMORPGs [Repair Her Armor]

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Ah, Uncharted's Nathan Drake — The everyman's adventurer. In a gaming landscape populated with neckless, 'roid-filled space marines and cyborg ninjas, you're here to remind us that being a regular joe on a mystical adventure is it's own kind of cool. Drake has gone through a lot of small, tiny changes over the years, but one thing that has mostly remained (somewhat) constant is the 'Half-tuck' — An innovative form of shirt wearing that game designer Tim Schafer once likened to 'an Unfinished Symphony'. Personally, I'm glad he ditched the canvas shoes by game three for a pair of boots. Indiana Jones wears Aldens for god's sake, the least you can do is not show up to the mythical lost city Shambhala in busted pair of Tevas. It's your turn, Kotaku readers. Using our image annotation system, show us what you love (or hate) about Nathan Drake's character design. Just click the part of the image you want to comment on and annotate away! To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @papapishu

If you loved Triple Triad and Tetra Master, the collectible card games included in Final Fantasy VIII and IX respectively, then you'll probably be quite annoyed by the format being utilized in this cash-hungry free-to-play movie tie-in. Just in time for the theatrical release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, Rivals takes pictures of people and creatures from the updated sci-fi franchise, sticks them on virtual cards, and asks you to pay for them in mildly clever ways. (In the 23rd century there is no use for money — get credits while you can!) There are numbers on all four sides of each card. Players take turns placing these cards on a 3x3 playing field. If on player's number is higher than that of an adjacent enemy card, that card is taken over. It's Triple Triad, only with a chain effect — newly taken-over cards will attack enemy cards adjacent to them as well. What's a fun card game in the context of Final Fantasy is rather lousy in the context of a free-to-play, multiplayer-only affair. After a brief tutorial, the only way to play is by taking turns with friends or strangers online, a slow and tedious process. Instead of collecting 172 cards throughout the course of a grand adventure, we're bombarded with ads for card packs and special sales and rare cards and other such bullshit. Star Trek Rivals is boldly going where better games have gone before, and property values are going to go way down when it moves in. It's comforting to know the tradition of money-grab movie games is alive and well in the mobile market. Star Trek Rivals Genre: Turn-based multiplayer card gameDeveloper: Elephant MousePlatform: iOSPrice: Free Get Star Trek Rivals in iTunes

Look kid, you can be a samurai, okay? Will you please just shut up about it?

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: Ueziel runs down his progress on his personal backlog, which includes Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts And E1SALVADOR writes about Code:Breakers and all the other anime he’s been watching. And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum.

Ahh, the video game industry, where people come up with names by smashing random words together. Today's entry: Dawngate. It looks like EA didn't mean to announce Dawngate just yet, as they haven't, well, announced it, but Kotaku columnist Superannuation discovered that the Dawngate website is up and running nonetheless. Dawngate is a MOBA—that is to say, an online battling game like Dota or League of Legends—"built from the ground up to look and feel familiar while offering a whole new way to experience MOBA gameplay." Remember, you're not really cool unless you have your very own MOBA. We've pinged EA to ask a bit more about the accidentally-announced Dawngate, and we'll let you know if we hear back.

Focus is on Wii U games coming this Spring and Summer.

You'll find no more of these silly codes to enter just to play online multiplayer.

If you've ever had to enter a code just to use the online features of a new game, you can thank EA for that. The publisher essentially invented the single-use code concept as a way of combating used game sales, ensuring that new purchasers could jump right in (provided the code actually worked), and anyone who bought a second-hand copy would have to pay a fee to get online. As much as many people hated it, EA kept doing it, and other publishers quickly followed suit.

Now, strangely enough, the publisher that started this whole thing has decided it no longer plans to bother with it. Speaking to GamesBeat yesterday, EA's head of corporate communications John Reseberg let it be known that EA would no longer be including online passes in its games.

“Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn't respond to the format,” Reseburg told GamesBeat. “We've listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”

It's an interesting quote, given that players most certainly did respond to the Online Pass concept, albeit primarily in negative fashion. It's also possible that EA simply didn't see enough value in the revenue derived from Online Passes. The company made between $10 and $15 million strictly from Online Passes in its first year including them, though those numbers might not have been enough to justify continuing on in the face of the audience's displeasure.

I doubt any of you out there in Giant Bomb land will shed a single tear over this. I know I certainly won't be. The only question I have now is, if EA has ditched this method of circumventing used game sales, does that mean it has a better--or, perhaps, more aggressive--method on the horizon? Maybe something to do with new consoles and built-in checks for new/used games? Just speculating, of course, but I doubt anyone would be too surprised if something like that came to fruition.

The Dark Knight fights Deathstroke in the very first teaser for Arkham Origins.