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Jan Ditlev Christensen is a Danish concept artist who works at IO Interactive, the developers behind games like the Hitman series. Prior to that, he worked at Deadline, where he worked on games like the Watchmen prequel and the cancelled Faith & A .45. You can see more of Jan's work at his personal site and 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!

There are "remakes" of classic old games that throw out what's often the most nostalgic part: the box art. Then there is Rise of the Triad. The 2013 remake of the cult PC shooter from 1995 might be making radical changes to the game itself, but it's stayed faithful to the iconic cover art, copying just about everything, from the poses to the outfits. Bummed that her hair was changed, though. My teenage self loved her as much for her perm/wave/whatever as the more...obvious reasons.

Hardware: Shipbreakers, a strategy game being made by some of the guys behind the Homeworld series, has looked very gorgeous for a very long time. Problem is, in all that time, we'd never actually seen any gameplay footage. Time to fix that, with this surprisingly candid and lengthy footage of the game in action. You don't need me to tell you that some of the art and effects here will move Homeworld fans to tears.

The weird but gorgeous iOS platformer, Badland, has ten new levels available now. The new levels introduces more powerups and puzzles for your little flying critter to take on. All of the new content is free in the update, and developer Frogmind says more will come in late June or early July.

Badland recently won the Nordic Game Conference's Indie Sensation award, and boasts over 150,000 players according to Frogmind. You can download Badland, with this free update, on the App Store for $3.99.

This is a real commercial for a real piece of hardware. It's for TrackingPoint, a company that makes laser-guided rifles. The clip above is billed as a "3D Video game-style teaser". You'd think the idea of sci-fi rifles turning real combat into a video game would be the craziest thing about it, but nope. For one, the timeline is a little confusing (shouldn't the grown son of an Afghanistan vet be shooting at aliens from a flying car?). And secondly, hunting for food and keeping cougars away from livestock? What is this, 1850? Going back to the guns, though, from a purely technical point of view, it's some fascinating tech. The more you see of it, the more you realise why they went with a video game-themed commercial. Especially since their live-action demonstrations are...unsavoury. The tech, which they call PGF (Precision Guided Firearm), works just like a video game sniper rifle, allowing the user to "tag" targets, after which a computer system calculates all the variables involved (wind speed, target movement, etc) and tells you whether your shot is going to hit or not. At least it does in theory. Even PGF's info page reads like a game manual, right down to the icon system that looks like something you'd bring up with a d-pad. [via Geekologie]

Hey, the first episode of Tiny Barbarian DX is out! Get it here.

Maybe because it had a relatively strong lead female character, maybe because it had some hunky dudes, maybe because everyone just likes lions, I'm not sure, but when I was growing up, Voltron was one of the few series the girls in my class liked almost as much as the boys. We're all being catered for today as grown-ups, then, as the cast has been reimagined by artist Josh Burns as some very realistic dreamboats. Well, most of the cast. There's only so much you can do with Pidge. You can see the complete cast at the link below. Voltron [Josh Burns, via Laughing Squid]

Warhammer Quest, for iOS, is out today. By all accounts, it's fantastic.

Rayman Jungle Run is available on Windows Phone 8 now, following its launch on iOS and Android in 2012, and a Windows 8 launch earlier this year. Rayman Jungle Run is $3 for Windows Phone, and we think it's definitely worth the price.

This isn't old-school Mickey Mouse—no, it's Fleish & Cherry in Crazy Hotel, an puzzle-heavy adventure game with a fantastic art-style. Look at this animation. It's so pretty. The premise, according to the Steam Greenlight page: In Toonville, Fleish the Fox is the star in vogue, featured in all the shorts recorded at this city where the toons live. Jealous of his fame, his enemy, Mr. Mintz, always attempts to ruin his adventures, by capturing his girlfriend, the charming Cherry. But the events will take an unexpected turn, when Mr. Mintz decides to kidnap Fleish instead, and bring him at the top of a hotel under construction. This time, it will fall to Cherry to muster her courage and overcome the craziness awaiting her through the multiple floors of the building, in order to rescue her beloved. Put on her high-heel shoes and save Fleish the Fox! The real star here are the visuals though. Have some more screenshots, where you also can see the dialogue system: What a beauty. The game is currently raising money over at IndieGoGo, if you'd like to offer some support.

Not all music can survive the a cappella treatment, let alone the "Geekapella" treatment. Goofy dudes (Max and Sam) singing geeky music, sort of in tune and sort of out of tune… a lesser theme song might lose some of its dramatic heft. Not Metal Gear Solid. No, when the heroic theme entered at 2:22, my first thought was, "Wow, even in this goofy version, the MGS theme kicks *crag*ing ass." That version was pretty fun, but let's go ahead and listen to the version from MGS2, as well. Oh, yeah.

Not the console itself, says Avalanche Studios Boss.

There's been a lot of talk of used games lately. But for all the theorizing and opinion-lobbing about the impact used games may or may not have on the video game industry, it can be tough to tell just how much of a part they play in our readers' lives. So tonight, I'm gonna turn it over to you. I put together a few polls to try to get a sense of how used games factor into our readers' purchasing habits. One thing to note: Since purchasing PC games is such a different beast, let's keep these polls limited to consoles with physical games and leave PC games out of them. (Sorry, PC games!) Granted, that's worth keeping in mind when weighing these polls' value, but at this point PC games and console games are different enough that I'd like to keep them separate. These polls aren't particularly scientific; if you have any other questions you think would be good to ask, please share in the comments, and maybe we can do another collection of questions a little ways down the road. Thanks for voting!

To be fair, there aren't a ton of Game Boy masks out there. A Game Boy isn't exactly something people like to wear on their face. Even so, this badass cyberpunk Game Boy mask is something else. According to Tiny Cartridge, it's a part of Tsuyoshi Morita's Game Boy inspired collection, Thunderbox. If that sounds of interest, here's a bunch of other pictures from that collection. And here are some Game Boy mask pictures: (Via Tiny Cartridge)

Professor Layton series developer Level-5 is working on a trio of role-playing games for mobile platforms in Japan, according to a report in this week's edition of the Japanese magazine Famitsu.

Heading up the series is Wonder Flick, a loot-based RPG featuring a soundtrack by Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. Other announced games include the railway simulation RPG Majin Station and Chikyu Kaimetsu teki B-kyu Kanojo, a post-apocalyptic adventure starring a cast of female mercenaries.

Level-5 registered a series of trademarks earlier this month pointing to these upcoming releases. Judging from the gameplay descriptions Famitsu provided, the trademarked name Rare Drop Boukensha Note was apparently an alternate title for Wonder Flick.

All announced games are set to premiere in Japan by the end of the year.

In response to my readers' desperate cries for healthy things to eat while playing video games, three weeks ago I reviewed the offerings of Graze.com, a UK-based natural food delivery service that's slowly moving into U.S. territory with their tiny boxes of natural foods. Well that was it. Now I'm on the radar of every healthy snack provider in the world, and Snacktaku will be about healthy things from here on out, starting with Nature Box, a healthy snack delivery service with much bigger boxes. Oh you know I can't give up the horrible things — not for long, at least. It's just there is no service that will send me four different pizzas or burgers every month (if I am wrong about this, contact me immediately), and I am enjoying the novelty. Shortly after my Graze.com review I was contacted by Amanda Natividad of Nature Box, who offered a very compelling reasons to give her product a try. Unlike Graze.com, which is currently limited to one referral code per member in the U.S., anyone can join up with Nature Box right now, scoring a selection of five different snacks (totaling 15-20 servings) per month for just $19.95. So yeah, this is a service you can actually join. And look at the monster box they send. That is a box filled with nature right there, no two ways about it. What's the difference between Nature Box and Graze.com? Well, Nature Box gives you a whole bunch of healthy snacking goodness all at once. You've got 15-20 servings of whatever varieties they're sending out that month, tailored to your dietary concerns and ready to be tossed into the car for a road trip with the kids. Graze.com sends a small box with four single-serving items every week or two, nice for a single person, not-so-nice if you want to share. The benefit of Graze.com is the variety, along with the fact that, should you not enjoy one of the snacks sent, you don't have another two or three servings sitting around in a bag, making you feel bad about it. It's a matter of frequency. Well, that and the ability to just sign up and go, which you can do with Nature Box, should you dare. Amanda graciously arranged for a box of snacks to be sent my way. Taking into account my general dislike of almonds, she picked five of her favorite Nature Box selections, packed them in the eponymous box, and then spent a couple of weeks no-doubt wondering if I'd ever get around to reviewing them. And here we are. Let's do this. Zesta Fiesta Mix Nature Box doesn't screw around with zesty. When they call something Zesta Fiesta Mix, it's going to zest all over your mouth. This particular vehicle of zest purveyance contains corn sticks, jalapeno peanuts, garlic peanuts, chili lemon peanuts and spicy pumpkin seeds, all adding up to an amazing burn that lingers long after eating. It tastes like it should do horrible things to my intestines, and yet it is a kind mix, only hurting me because it loves me. Well, mostly loves me. The final ingredient in this mix is almonds, which dammit, we talked about almonds, Amanda. Southern BBQ Sunflower Kernels I've never been a huge fan of sunflower seeds, but I am not averse to eating large mouthfuls when someone else has peeled the shell away to reveal the meaty kernels. These particular kernels are infused with a Southern BBQ flavor, an appropriately vague name for the hint of smoky tang lurking between bites. Sunflower kernels aren't the best means of conveying flavor, but they fill the mouth wonderfully, as long as you don't start imagining they are tiny beetles. I imagined they were tiny beetles. Don't do that. Blueberry Nom Noms I am a huge fan of using internet nonsense to name food. Blueberry Nom Noms are a pleasing mass of oats, honey, blueberries, dark chocolate and mystery, arranged into a thick and chewy snack that's much more bitter than I expected. It's almost too mature a taste for a snack named for the onomatopoeia of a hamster munching a carrot. Whole Wheat Figgy Bars This is not a Fig Newton. A Fig Newton is a tiny processed square that vaguely hints and the sweetness of real dried dates and cake-ish cookie coating. This is not that. This is a Whole Wheat Figgy Bar, a truly meaty mouthful of wholesome goodness. You remember wholesome, right? They used the adjective in all of those commercials back when we were kids. Well, this is what wholesome tastes like. The package came with five individually wrapped bars, in an attempt to keep me from eating them all in one sitting. Foolish plastic wrapping. Peppery Pistachios I have never sat down with a bag of pistachios with the intent of opening them and eating them — it always seemed like far too much work. That, and there was an incident with pistachios back when I was a child that I'd rather not get into. Suffice it to say, I was not pleased when one of the Nature Box selections was Peppery Pistachios, but I soldiered on. WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN EATING PISTACHIOS? I blame all of you. These are amazing little snacks. Crusted with salt and pepper while still in their shells, bursting with flavor in every bite — such a pleasant sting. And what a wonderful means of trasport! After the explosion of peppery goodness is gone, the empty shells can be suckled to savor its memory. Plus, having to shell my own damn nuts means I don't eat them all at once. Are all pistachios so good? Have I wasted my life? Probably, yes. ——————————————— All-in-all, Nature Box did a fine job of delivering healthy snacks to my door. The selection was nice and varied. There were some old favorites, some new surprises. I'd like to think I learned something about myself , as well as Amanda's ability to ferret out almonds. The only downside is that opening one of these boxes starts a timer that expires in one month, and when you've devoured all of the seeds, nuts, figs, shells and nom noms, there's nothing more coming for another (checks watch) month. If you have the self-control to dole out the natural goodness over time, then by all means, get yourself up inside that Nature Box. If you're me, feel mildly ashamed of yourself, and then buy yourself something pretty because you deserve it, sexy.

New York City-based independent developers Heartonomy are bringing a unique sort of multiplayer strategy game to iOS this summer, and for some odd reason they named it StarLicker, which really negates the need for any explanation of gameplay. Okay fine, it's a game where you and another player alternate setting up attack patterns and defending against them. One player sets up attacking units, arranging them about a base of sorts. Once the attacking units are in place, the defending player then attempts to absorb as many of the incoming bullets as they can in a fixed amount of time. It's like a real-time strategy game had sex with a bullet-hell shooter and had a baby. And they named it StarLicker. There's a beta coming up for StarLicker, and it will be your only opportunity to tell people that you're in beta for a game called StarLicker. You can sign up for it and find out more about the game here.

NAIL. BITER.

I don't know what it is exactly about Graeme Abraham's pencil-holder game controllers that horrifies me, but when I look at them, my first thought is, "gah!" They just seem unnatural, don't they? Like someone's stabbed their wee little eyes out. But they're also strangely hypnotic… and probably somewhat less terrifying when they're sitting on your desk. And they do have a USB port... hmm. Here's how they work: If you'd like one, you can order 'em from Abraham's Etsy store. But if they come to life and crawl all over your face while you're sleeping, don't say I didn't warn you. (Via Laughing Squid)

If Tony Hawk didn't land the 900, apparently the consequences would be so dire that the entire would become a psychedelic skating wonderland according to Perfect Stride. Also the laws of physics would break to the point where you can now skate on the ceiling. Seems legit. The developers call Perfect Stride a "first-person maximalist skater for PC & OSX," and they say it's based on "old school FPS movement exploits" like Quake jumping, Tribes skiing, and Counter-Strike surfing. And according to the (utterly fantastic) website, the controls are "hella hard" but that's intentional. The game is only available to people who funded the LA Game Space on Kickstarter, although there are plans to allow people to donate to that project (and thus receive a copy of Perfect Stride) in the near future according to Rock Paper, Shotgun.

YouTube gaming commentator Total Biscuit does not like used games. He's no suit defending The Man. He's a hardcore PC gamer and man of the people. Now, he's not right about everything (to wit: he thinks we're "terrible"... yeah, ok). But he makes some great points about used games being no-good. Got half an hour? Give his argument a listen. He's considering many points of view. Used games might be a convenient industry scapegoat, but that doesn't mean they're not problematic. The man makes a compelling case. Feel free to disagree. There are strong arguments for and against. The Devil's Halibut - Used Games [YouTube]

Perhaps keeping Fuse as a "Ratchet & Clank with humans" would have helped it stand out more. Too late for that now. Luckily, Fuse is still thought to be a more or less a fun shooter, even if it's not without flaws. The forgettable story and bland setting are oft-mentioned low points, along with the perceived repetitiveness of the gameplay—although some were bothered by that more than others. Here's a sampling of what the critics are saying. Destructoid Fuse has a story, I think. Something about a group of mercenaries (maybe) called Overstrike, on the trail of some terrorists, or maybe a rogue military company. The villains — all helmeted future soldier types — have access to some space age technology they're using for weaponry, maybe. The trouble with summarizing Fuse's plot is that it's very easy to start describing one of the thousands of similar near-future sci-fi stories from which this game is utterly indistinguishable. Giant Bomb You're free to play Fuse by yourself, during which you can quickly swap between characters to utilize their unique weapons and flank groups of enemies. For the first couple of missions, setting up warp chains or dropping a magshield to take cover behind is pretty interesting, but since each character is stuck with the same primary Xenotech weapon the entire game, the novelty wears off faster than it should. Each agent has a skill tree that you can put points into as you level up—and the way experience is doled out encourages you to use your weapons creatively, so you level faster—but the skill trees don't offer a meaningful level of customization. Instead, they really only offer you the choice between crit effects on your Xenotech weapons or increased damage on your regular ones, and aside from a few weapon-specific secondary abilities, each tree merely gives the same generic abilities to each agent. IGN At least the guns are cool, regardless of their confusing origins. Each has a tactical purpose tailored to different play styles, and when a coordinated co-op team uses them together, Fuse’s standard stop-and-pop cover shooting graduates to a boisterous bit of strategic action. Dalton’s protective Magshield is a great piece of mobile cover for his teammates, and also acts as a shotgun with a barrel the size of a barn door. (Tactical players should love looking out for their friends with him.) Cloaking as Naya lets her get the drop on enemies before using the Warp Rifle to transform men into explosive black holes. (She's a terrific mix of quiet and loud, and succeeds at both.) Izzy can crystalize enemies with her Fuse bullets, freezing them in place (the least climactic skill in Overstrike 9's arsenal). Jacob’s delightful crossbow creates remote mines out of magma bolts, allowing him to melt his enemies individually or in groups. (It is, hands down, my favorite gun of the lot, because it makes Jacob the most effective combatant of 'em all). GameSpot Fuse is a third-person, cover-based shooter, and you do spend a fair amount of time moving in and around cover. Fortunately, the controls respond adroitly and make you feel nimble when maneuvering around barriers, allowing you to remain shielded from enemy fire. Movement out in the open can be a bit sluggish, but on the whole, the core action feels crisp, if very conventional. That is, until you start flexing your character-specific skills. EGM The best way to describe Fuse’s action is that it’s like a third-person bullet hell. Every weaponized projectile you can think of is constantly flung at your characters, filling the screen at times and making teamwork and cover a must—especially against the bullet-sponge bosses. This frantic, panicked pace gives the action an addictive quality I haven’t experienced in quite a while. Game Informer At roughly seven hours long, it seems like a game that should be ripe for replayability. There are four different characters to level up, and plenty of collectibles to go back and find. Unfortunately, you can’t skip cutscenes, even if you’ve seen them plenty of times. I’d be much more inclined to jump into a quick mission with some friends if I knew I didn’t have to watch the same scenes over and over again. If you’ve beaten the game and want to level your characters without rewatching these cutscenes, the Horde-like Echelon mode is the perfect arena. With several maps that feature huge waves of enemies, it’s a great way to hop in and blast baddies without being saddled with the mediocre story. However, it doesn’t add any innovation to the basic Horde mode formula; its main use is just grinding levels. Kotaku So many of Fuse's elements—from the squad-based co-op play, to the role-playing elements—seem like the ingredients necessary to make a Good Shooter (according to the almighty focus group, anyway). And indeed, many shooters see adding these same features as a way of keeping up—resulting in very samey titles. Fuse's familiarity is not surprising, although in Fuse's case, the feeling is particularly potent. It's almost like you need more than a palatable feature list to have a worthwhile game. Top image courtesy of Gergő Vas. Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Intuitive Game Studios comprised of former members of Team Bondi.

Microsoft reports 8.45 million viewers for the reveal of Xbox One, “rivaling one of the top-most concurrent streamed events of all time.”

Craigslist ain't simply your one-stop source for $27 flea-infested futons, or where you celebrate a third DUI by buying a moped. No, you can find some truly bizarre shit, like this rolling deathtrap in which you may play an Xbox 360 with your knees tucked to your chest. Why on God's green earth someone would build this, much less use it as described, is beyond me, but a craftsman in the vibrant artisan community of Youngstown, Ohio is offering it for 2.5 kilobucks. Listed on April 29, it's still up for sale on that locality's Craigslist. Amenities include an "HD LCD TV on adjustable Omnimount," "black fleece inner wall lining" a "100 watt powered subwoofer" and "solid construction." It supposedly seats two. There also is a "rubber lined spill-proof floor" in case you tip over a beer or put someone's body in there, plus a latch for a padlock if you want to trick a friend into playing some Call of Duty while you forklift his ass into Evans Lake. Serious inquiries only. X-Box 360 Personal Gaming Module SERIOUS GAMERS ONLY!!!! - $2500 (Youngstown, OH) [Craigslist, via Geekologie]

A new gameplay mechanic mixes up the word-puzzle genre, four fresh freebies are featured and Badland's updated in today's ASU.

The Missouri goober who last year was leading a senate race against the incumbent until he decided to mouth off about his personal concept of "legitimate rape" has been immortalized by a pinball machine. In France. And in keeping with Todd Akin's dumb*crag* worldview, it's ball out, every time. You may recall that Akin was ahead of Claire McCaskill in August 2012 when he went on a public affairs show in St. Louis and decided there was some constituency of undecided women voters in that state who could be persuaded to vote for him because of this particular concept: "First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Yeah, no. As a policy aim, attempted redefinitions of rape don't poll very well, regardless of political affiliation, and Akin's own party told him to GTFO the race, though he didn't. McCaskill went from being one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election to a winner with 54 percent of the vote. That inspired French artist (and I'm gonna let those words twist for a long moment) Marie Busson to create this, "La Femme Flipper ... en Réponse à Tod Akin." It's a pinball machine in which the plunger, placed between a pair of woman's legs, aims the ball at a set of flippers that block its entry into the womb. Hence the means of shutting that whole thing down. Todd Akin may not be in office, but he can spin his propeller beanie and play this pinball machine all day long and feel better about hisself. Todd Akin's "Legitimate Rape" Quote Has Inspired a Pinball Game In France (PHOTOS) [Riverfront Times] To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

After telling the tale of the last of the Horadrim in the Book of Cain, Blizzard is launching another companion book for Diablo 3, the Book of Tyrael. Just as Book of Cain chronicled the thoughts of Diablo's talkative elder, the Book of Tyrael is "an in-depth look into the mind of the Archangel Tyrael," a prominent character in the series.

The book promises "never-before-known secrets" about the Diablo universe and will feature original artwork. It will also include writings written from the perspectives of both Deckard and Leah Cain and "a fully removable family tree."

The Book of Tyrael will be released on October 1 for $40. The only catch is you'll have to stop playing Diablo 3 to read it.

From the outset, Fuse feels like a familiar game—it mixes some of the best ideas from a bevy of other titles into a futuristic third-person shooter. Think Borderlands meets Bulletstorm with a dash of Uncharted. That sounds sweet on paper, but Fuse proves that it takes more than a list of good ideas to make a game worth feeling excited about. Fuse tells the story of an elite team tasked with retrieving a highly dangerous energy source (Fuse). Fuse was meant to be a renewable energy source. Instead, nefarious folk found a way to weaponize the power. What a surprise! Also not surprising: things don't exactly go as planned on the your initial mission, and that's the reason you're pulled through a number of locales as you chase after comically one-note villains who threaten to destroy the world with the all-powerful Fuse. You, too, have access to that same power. Fuse is a class-based shooter, and in practice this means that each squad-mate gets a unique Fuse-powered weapon in addition to unique powers—both of which can be bolstered via a skill tree. These weapons are probably the most distinguishing characteristic for the otherwise forgettable characters, a fact that's disappointing after playing games like Borderlands—which is also a class-based cooperative shooter with awesome weapons and RPG elements. The leader if the group, Dalton Brooks, has portable cover—a "Magshield"—which can absorb, and then repel any projectiles it traps. Isabelle Sinclair, a redhead that looks suspiciously like the siren in Borderlands, is a character with access to a "Shattergun"—a weapon which can crystallize enemies. Izzy can also deploy a med beacon which can heal and revive team members. Naya Deveraux wields a "Warp Rifle," a weapon which can create singularities, in addition to being able to go invisible. Finally, my personal favorite is Jacob Kimble, a former LAPD detective which uses an "Arcshot," a crossbow which can liquify enemies. These weapons, for the most part, are unique and powerful—and unsurprisingly, limited in use. The game would be hilariously broken if we were allowed to use Fuse weapons all the time. So I found myself using the other weapons more often than any of the special Fuse weapons, which normally wouldn't be a problem…except that the normal weapons feel almost indistinguishable from one another in everything except for fire rate. It's a drag. Under ideal circumstances, players are expected to use a character's unique abilities for team work and coordination. You might, for example, have Izzy crystalize an enemy, and then have another character shatter that enemy with a normal weapon. Such tactics could be coordinated with teammates if you're playing co-op, or hypothetically, could be used by the players themselves. Fuse allows players to switch between characters at the touch of a button, which is a neat ability that I admittedly didn't use very often. Not unless my character of choice was nearly out of ammo, anyway. Fuse awards points for every kill, and these points increase if you coordinate attacks with your teammates. A kill is worth more, for example, if you attain it while behind the Magshield. The genius of Bulletstorm's scoring system, however, is that there are a number of entertaining and unique ways to kill enemies, and players can't simply repeat the same type of kill over and over again for the same number of points. Fuse, on the other hand, will always award you the same number of points on a kill no matter how many times you do it, and seems to only have a limited number of tactical power combinations. Granted, there didn't seem to be too many tactical combinations to explore with buddies, playing co-op is still a smoother experience than playing alone. Human beings aren't clueless AI, after all, and you'll likely be able to go through levels at a quicker pace if you play co-op. The game seems built with the idea that you'll play with someone else. Regardless, I also eventually stopped paying attention to the scoring system and unique combinations altogether at one point, and instead focused on the most effective method of killing enemies. Which is to say, I felt like I turned my brain off while playing Fuse. The fact that it felt like I kept experiencing the same things over and over, only with a different decor (ice level! space level!) didn't help. Every level has three basic elements: arenas, sneaking areas, as well as Uncharted-style climbing sections. Aside from the difference in location—which is only a surface-level difference—many levels felt constructed the same way. You'll encounter most of the enemies the game has to offer early on and as you continue the biggest difference you can look forward to might just be that that enemy now has a shield over it or something. These generic bullet sponges didn't feel particularly smart, although they will rain down on you in mindless droves. When the characters make quips about endless enemies, I couldn't help but nod with fatigue. This was another reason I felt like I turned my brain off as I held the "shoot" button down while playing Fuse. The pacing with enemy encounters also felt off. Boss battles, for example. These often entail time-consuming battles against mechs, only to have the game throw another grueling wave of enemies at you right after those boss encounters. Sometimes that wave would even be followed up by yet another mech. And finally, just when I thought you'd get some time to breathe, a bunch of enemies will spawn on the elevator/room you need to exit in. This made enemy encounters feel like jankily-paced tedium. Between these segments, Fuse will sometimes ask you to sneak and climb your way through it. The sneaking sections aren't well realized—think more Metal Gear Rising than Metal Gear Solid. Put another way, levels seem designed more for head-on encounters than furtive playthroughs. The climbing sections, meanwhile, are entirely forgettable and don't add anything to the mix. Fuse also features an "Echelon" mode, otherwise known as 'this game's version of horde mode.' In many ways, it feels like campaign mode except without the (completely disposable and cliched) story, and with objectives that tended to keep things interesting. I didn't get very far with my attempts to play the mode on my own—its difficulty seems tuned for more than one player—but I can't help but wonder if players wouldn't be better off skipping the campaign and sticking to Echelon. So many of Fuse's elements—from the squad-based co-op play, to the role-playing elements—seem like the ingredients necessary to make a Good Shooter (according to the almighty focus group, anyway). And indeed, many shooters see adding these same features as a way of keeping up—resulting in very samey titles. Fuse's familiarity is not surprising, although although in Fuse's case, the feeling is particularly potent. It's almost like you need more than a palatable feature list to have a worthwhile game.