Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Vinny and Patrick sleep all night and place defenses and bless bullets and get mauled by werewolves all day.

We really like Gunpoint here at Kotaku. Those of us who have the game can't stop playing it. Kirk's gone over why the game is so great in his review, but I think there's one area in particular that deserves a little extra attention: its achievements. They're practical. Poignant. Hilarious. Self-aware. Everything you want from them. Some follow the standard format of simply rewarding you for hitting a milestone, but others are so good because they fit the spirit of the game, one that never takes itself very seriously, and is constantly aware of its limitations. Below are some examples. They should serve as examples to any game that implements achievements on any system (so, well, every game). Title Finally Relevant Help justify my early, not entirely wise choice of game name by holding someone at gunpoint with the Resolver. Might As Well Have An Achievement For That Too Use the Gatecrashers to kick a door through a window. I Am Better At This Than Tom Francis Complete a mission faster than I can. And my favourite, if only because it's so close to home: Acknowledged Ludonarrative Dissonance Notice the story doesn't necessarily gel with the mechanics. Become qualified games journalist. Got any favourites of a similarly whimsical nature? Let us know below!

Jennifer Olivarez made this cute little crocheted outfit for a pet turtle, tunring the little guy into the sweetest Bowser you'll ever see. For crafty types and/or turtle owners, there's directions on how to make your own. Don't have a turtle? Maybe it'll fit your kid. Or Roomba. Make It! Challenge #5: Crochet Bowser Sweater for a Turtle [Make It!, via Fashionably Geek]

This past weekend in Yokohama, 25,000 Japanese fans gathered for Tales of Festival 2013 over the course of two days. And since the conversation at an event like this turns to all things Tales, we at Kotaku East decided to give voice to a few fans about their favorite Tales games and more. As you’ll see from their responses, these fans have favorites across the entire series, and they are definitely loyal to the core when it comes to Tales. Name: Eri Gender: Female Age: 21 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Eternia Favorite Tales Character: Meredy (Tales of Eternia) How long have you been playing the series? Since 2nd grade in elementary school. How did you get into the Tales series? I watched my big brother playing it and I wanted to play, too. Name: Mika Gender: Female Age: 20 Favorite Tales game:Tales of the Abyss Favorite Tales Character: Luke Fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss) How long have you been playing the series? About five years. How did you get into the Tales series? My friends recommended it to me so I gave it a try. Name: Nakagawa Gender: Male Age: 20 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Destiny 2 Favorite Tales Character: Elise Lutus (Tales of Xillia) How long have you been playing the series? Ten years. How did you get into the Tales series? It was kind of a coincidence; I saw the cover, liked it, and decided to try it. Name: Tatsumi Gender: Male Age: 19 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Graces f Favorite Tales Character: Cheria Barnes (Tales of Graces f) How long have you been playing the series? Five years. How did you get into the Tales series? My friends were fans of the series and recommended it to me. Name: “Christina” Gender: Female Age: 19 Favorite Tales game: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World Favorite Tales Character: Emil Castagnier (Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World) How long have you been playing the series? Six years. How did you get into the Tales series? My friend Takai introduced me to it. Name: Takai Gender: Female Age: 19 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Graces Favorite Tales Character: Asbel Lhant (Tales of Graces) How long have you been playing the series? Since 4th grade in elementary school. How did you get into the Tales series? My mom bought it for us to play coop together. Name: Koichi Gender: Male Age: 14 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Vesperia Favorite Tales Character: Yuri Lowell (Tales of Vesperia) How long have you been playing the series? Two years. How did you get into the Tales series? My friend told me about it so I gave it a try. Name: Akemi Gender: Female Age: 15 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Xillia Favorite Tales Character: Milla Maxwell (Tales of Xillia) or Sophie (Tales of Graces) How long have you been playing the series? I haven't played a Tales game myself yet. But I plan to start playing Tales games sometime in the future. Name: Hanto (from Thailand) Gender: Male Age: 26 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Graces Favorite Tales Character: Rowen (Tales of Xillia) or Cheria (Tales of Graces) How long have you been playing the series? Since Tales of Eternia came out. How did you get into the Tales series? I liked RPGs and when I went to the game shop and looked at the games, it looked interesting. I thought the battle system looked fun. Name: Ricio (from Thailand) Gender: Female Age: 26 Favorite Tales game:Tales of Vesperia Favorite Tales Character: Yuri Lowell (Tales of Vesperia) How long have you been playing the series? One year. How did you get into the Tales series? My friends told me it was fun so I played with them and they were right! 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. To contact the author of this post, write to BiggestinJapan@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @BiggestinJapan.

Randomly-generated Unreal Engine 4 horror game Daylight will come to PlayStation 4, published by Atlus.

So many games about hate! Death! Violence! Sometimes, you just want to play something that's about loving your fellow man instead of putting a knife in his face. Something like Hugatron. A little indie project being worked on by Andrew J Smith ,Andrew Roper and Ewan Brock, it involves two players spinning a wheel, Twister-style, which dictates the kind of hug they have to dish out. Then they dish it out. Sometimes it's gentle! Sometimes there's combat. But it's cuddle combat, so it's OK. It's coming to PC and Mac soon, but you can follow its progress at Hugatron's site.

Dorje Bellbrook is a concept artist at Bungie, who has previously worked at FASA and Red Storm Entertainment. His Bungie work means he's been one of the more public contributors to the art we've seen so far for Destiny, the studio's first game since leaving the Halo franchise behind. Indeed, you might recognise the image above as one of the winners of this year's prestigious Into the Pixel awards, honouring the very best in video game art. Below you'll find a nice mix of art from Destiny, the Halo series and some of Bellbrook's personal work. You can see more of Dorje's stuff at his personal site. 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!

Jeff takes control of Captain America as he fights the forces of evil and DRM.

Double Fine's strategy game Massive Chalice will let you get married, and make babies. But wait a minute. What if two dudes/ladies want to get married? Well, the game didn't originally support it. "That was something I got kinda blindsided by", Double Fine's Brad Muir tells Rock Paper Shotgun. "That was really unfortunate. It kinda makes me feel shitty that it’s not something I’d thought of. I think it’s sort of hetero privilege that I didn’t see it coming.” Here's where it gets interesting: gay marriage is now in the game, and it's because of Kickstarter. “We brought it [via Kickstarter] to a broader group of people, and then there were some people who brought it up and wanted to talk about it. There’s a raging thread on our forums.” If they'd taken the game straight to a publisher, the old-fashioned way, that would never have happened. So, say what you will about Kickstarter's merits as a finding method, it's certainly useful for the most important kind of focus-testing imaginable: with the people already promising to buy your game. How Kickstarter Got Gay Marriage Into Massive Chalice [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

A live reading of an actual DayZ chat window from a single session. Serious business. Poignant. Beautiful. Terrifying. Inane. I have no idea if this was shot for an upcoming episode of Good Game or if the show’s presenter ‘Bajo’ simply got bored, turned off the lights, dressed like a beat poet and got freaky. Either way, this is great value. Also, Steve Fapp Hard… rest in peace. You were a good man. A good, misunderstood man. WOMAN. WO MAN. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMAN.

Imagine, for a moment, that you play through Infinite not as Booker DeWitt, but rather as Michael Bluth. Okay. Now imagine that you still have Elizabeth around, only her characterization is less "Disney Princess" and more "Gob Bluth." Still with me? Because this isn't just an idle thought experiment, as you might've guessed from the initial image in this post. Redditor acidityregulator brings to our attention the rest of these delightful, if not hilarious, comics that bring some Arrested Development into Columbia. Check it out (some Infinite spoilers follow): Arrested Development Infinite [BI spoilers] [acidityregulator]

Between DayZ, ZombieU, Left 4 Dead 2 and The Walking Dead, I thought I was burnt out on zombie games. Well, it turns out I was wrong. In the video above I quickly show you around the world of State of Decay, the open-world zombie game released yesterday for XBLA that's been slowly winning me over. It's a little wonky at times but it's also ambitious, fun and tries a lot more than I'd expect from a downloadable arcade title. To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @papapishu

The PS4. The Xbox One. The Ouya. The Game Stick. 2013's turning out to be the year for all sorts of new hardware to come out of hiding. And now those systems are joined by the most mysterious and colorful one of all: the iam8bit Entertainment System. Want to know the hardware specs? You'll need to go to an art show in Los Angeles—and not E3—to find out. The wood-paneled box makes its debut tonight at an art exhibition put together by the iam8bit nerd collective and tonight's when its capabilities get revealed. The i8b ES is the work of L.A.-based Travis Chen, who's joined by more than 80 other creators who've made artwork based on old-school video game memories. The show's also going to have a life-sized recreation of Uncle Scrooge's Money Bin for folks to swim around in, too. So, if you're in Los Angeles, head on over to the iam8bit gallery and tell us what the damn box does, okay?

Many Metal Gear Solid fans aren't exactly happy that David Hayter will not—as far as we can tell—be reprising his role as Snake in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V. That much isn't surprising. Amusingly, the inability to let Hayter go has led some fans to concoct a ridiculous conspiracy theory about what's actually happening with MGSV. The idea is this: Earlier today, in what seemed to be a snipe at Konami, David Hayter compared Kiefer Sutherland to New Coke. New Coke was introduced in 1985 in an attempt to update the Coke formula. People rejected it, and Coke's original formula was reintroduced as "Coca-Cola Classic." Here's where it gets interesting: New Coke has a conpiracy theory which postulates that it was all a giant ruse to get Coke Classic sales up. So while Hayter's tweet could be interpreted as a dig, it could also be interpreted as a nod to Konami's attempt to do the same thing with Hayter. This reading is hopeful that Hayter will still be in the picture somehow—reintroduced at some point as "Snake Classic," and ultimately driving up sales for the new Metal Gear Solid. Get it? Here's an image that has been floating around that "explains" the conspiracy theory (click to enlarge): Its, uh, pretty out there. Not sure if I buy into it, although I wouldn't be surprised if Kojima still had tricks up his sleeve. That's his style, after all. (Thanks, Alex!)

Capcom has revealed something rather unexpected. Dragon's Dogma is coming to PS Vita in the form of an all-new game.

Microsoft came under intense scrutiny regarding its DRM and always on policies for Xbox One after the initial hardware reveal, and just days ahead of its E3 press conference, the company has released new details about how it’ll all work.

There are still questions (ones that I’ll, sadly, be unable to ask since Microsoft cancelled my one-on-one interviews with its executives at the last second!), but here’s what we now know. These quotes come directly from Microsoft:

Always On

• While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.

• With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.

Used Games

• Buy the way you want—disc or digital—on the same day: You’ll be able to buy disc-based games at traditional retailers or online through Xbox Live, on day of release. Discs will continue to be a great way to install your games quickly.

• Access your entire games library from any Xbox One—no discs required:After signing in and installing, you can play any of your games from any Xbox One because a digital copy of your game is stored on your console and in the cloud. So, for example, while you are logged in at your friend’s house, you can play your games.

• Share access to your games with everyone inside your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games. Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you.

• Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.
• Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere:Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

• In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.

• Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

Kinect Privacy

• You are in control of what Kinect can see and hear: By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded.

• You are in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused: If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences.

• You are in control of your personal data: You can play games or enjoy applications that use data, such as videos, photos, facial expressions, heart rate and more, but this data will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission. Here are a few examples of potential future scenarios:

  • A fitness game could measure heart rate data to provide you with improved feedback on your workout, allow you to track your progress, or even measure calories burned.

  • A card game could allow you to bluff your virtual opponent using your facial expressions.

The Giant Bomb staff deciphers the digital-rights policies for Microsoft's new console through interpretive dance.

AlloySevenVideo—Bryant Chambers, a former platoon leader in Iraq back in 2003—never got formally diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. But that doesn't mean war can't haunt him in some ways. That's where games come in, as he talks about in this video. "I honestly never thought I had any issues until several years after the event," he explained to Kotaku in an email. Thankfully, in addition to finding an outlet in games like Battlefield 3—which, amongst other things, provides a sense of brotherhood similar to what he experienced in combat—Chambers also found much support within his family. " I was fortunate enough to have a strong family unit that included a father and an older brother who fought in combat (Vietnam and Desert Storm in order)," he said. "I left active duty shortly after the war and took a job as the Director of Operations and Deputy GM at Union Station here in DC. The tempo of that job didn't really give me a chance to mentally or emotionally process my experience," Chambers recalled. "Once I took a more mellow job I started to notice that some of the symptoms I outlined in the video were present in my life. My mom recommended a website for soldiers returning home that was a great help in getting me to understand why I was feeling what I was feeling—especially the "numb and unresponsive" part. They basically told me to "have a Coke and a smile." "On a more practical note, the process the Army has in place for separating soldiers is FAR more advanced and sensitive to the PTSD issue than they were when I left. They basically told me to "have a Coke and a smile," he said. Chambers notes that despite not being diagnosed, he did seek out counseling—which he recommends to any soldier who wants to work through the emotional strain of combat. The Reddit thread which brought Chamber's video to our attention also had some folks discussing their experiences using games to cope with PTSD. A sampling: IAmTheBADASS: I am military, I have not been diagnosed with PTSD, however I get ticks and anxiety a lot. I play video games, mostly FPS and they disappear. My fiancé even noticed that once I play I am not on edge anymore. So I even get time to play when she's home. nuevakl : I get the same way. Never noticed it until my SO pointed it out to me. Gaming for some reason calms me down, only problem for me is i cannot play a game for more than 20-30 minutes before i need to change games because that restless and anxiety sensation crawls up on me again. AcidMobius: I'm glad he can put this into words because I couldn't. PTSD is a struggle with yourself and your past, everyone copes with it their own way to mend back into society but Battlefield 3 just happens to be my way of doing so as well. Brothers in Arms till the end. Game Therapy - PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) [AlloySevenVideo]

According to a shirt Sony is handing out to its roster of independent developers, "PlayStation <3 Devs." And Sony wants everyone to know it.

Ron Gilbert's latest, Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty, launches on iOS today as a universal app for $.99. Scurvy Scallywags is a pirate-themed match-three game with RPG elements. Players explore themed islands, match symbols and collect treasure. Oh, the life of a pirate!

Iconic game designer Ron Gilbert is best known for his time at LucasArts back in the '90s, where he helped to create Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. This year, Ron Gilbert completed a stint at Double Fine Productions working on co-op adventure game The Cave.

I have a little guilt over it—like Kotaku bossman Stephen Totilo—but I’m doing most of my comics reading on an iPad nowadays. While the convenience is great and the work can look better on the screen than in print, it’s a little weird that comics are still so static on smart devices. Comics legend Jim Lee thinks so too and, as co-publisher of DC Comics, he’s doing something to change that. Yesterday, the House Superman Built announced two new technology tweaks that they’ll be rolling out for select comics in the future. DC2 will bring limited animation and moving camera angles to the superhero adventures and DC2 Multiverse fuses that motion approach with the branching paths of a choose-your-own-adventure. Lee cited those sequences where Batman would say a line like “There’s 15 ways to take him out”, saying that Multiverse is a platform where creators could show each one of those takedowns. The first DC2 project will be a Batman 1966 comic that spins out of the iconic camp TV show that starred Adam West and an Arkham Origins series will be the first Multiverse project. Expect the first one to show up sometime this summer, possibly around this year’s San Diego Comic-Con and the video game tie-in shuld be out around the same time as the upcoming Batman title. Gizmodo’s Peter Ha and I had the chance to talk to Lee earlier this week about the new initiatives and find out how the company’s planning to roll out the new approaches to digital publishing. Peter Ha: You talked a bit about previous attempts at motion comics and where you felt they went wrong. Can you elaborate on that? Jim Lee: They took the control, the pace of the story out of the viewer’s hands. It was a passive experience like watching a low budget cartoon. I think that’s probably what didn’t resonate with the readers. I think having areas where you have to make prompt and smart decisions pay off for you within the story engages people in a way that the motion comics wouldn’t. But the motion animation is limited to a very short bit of time, so again, it feels like it’s all being prompted by the user or reader, and to me that makes a difference between a passive viewing experience and makes it an active reading experience. Peter Ha: Yeah, the Watchmen one in particular was pretty bad. There was only one voice actor. Jim: Yeah, you know what, that’s the thing. If you noticed, we didn’t do any voice acting because that’s something that really is an art unto itself and you have to wait for the dialogue to be said. We didn’t want that. If people want to read this quickly we don’t have it. Ultimately, I would love for people to be able to toggle some of these things off if they didn’t want that in their reading experience so it’s customizable that way. Peter: What’s going to drive the decision on which titles are going to get either one of the technologies? Jim: I think it comes down to the content that best works for the technology. That meant Arkham Origins—with its sandbox world that they have in the game—can fit perfectly with Multiverse technology, and BATMAN ‘66 with it’s kind of fun, wacky representation of Batman’s world works great for DC2 so that’s really been our guiding light because otherwise I think you hit the nail on the head, “What does the term what gets this treatment or not?” You just can’t do it willy-nilly without any sort of strategy. Our strategy has always been find the right pairing. Because some of this technology has been around for a while. Actually, when Digital Publishing first started, we were being shown versions of trade paperbacks that had all these incredible bells and whistles but they had nothing to do with the reading experience, like Wikipedia call-outs to any word that you found. If there was a fireman that was mentioned, if you clicked fireman, it would show you what a fireman does. That, to me, doesn’t do anything to reinforce the brand of what you’re reading, the type of story you’re reading. Early on we really shooed doing that kind of stuff and focused on really delivering the best stories in the best format possible. Then, we started doing a lot of work with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and that started unlocking some ideas as far as what we could do to better support what they’re doing, how to create some digital content or products that would be more enticing possibly to gamers and that’s where that came from. I would imagine that we would have had more collaboration with WBIE as they continue rolling out games. If you look at the game space, there’s a lot of pressure on games to deliver great gameplay sometimes at the expense of elaborating on the story because there’s only so much information you can put on the disc. They’ve got to really focus on gameplay. We’re able to come in and do interstitial material or background material that really fleshes out the world and to be able to do it with some innovative technology to me is a big win for our business and theirs. Peter: As far as Multiverse is concerned, it obviously changes the storytellers’ efforts because it put a little more load on your plate because you have to figure out how many different paths there are in any given story. Jim: There’s a ton of pre-planning that goes into it. It’s a whole other logistical step that you have to go through before you even start writing out the synopsis or drawing panels. Peter: Do you think that you would want to do that extra work with existing books? Jim: I would completely want to do it. Yeah. I would completely want to do it. Yes, absolutely. I would want to test the waters. As a creator, you’re defined by your ability to take on challenges and to me this is one of the ultimate challenges because it’s about coming up with a very extensive plan, and then enacting that plan and that’s sometimes very tough for creators. Because a lot of times with story lines we start off with a general idea of where the story is going to go and we change in midstream and as the saying is, as the characters start talking to you and telling you where they want to go, you don’t always have that luxury with this because you want to pre-plan all of this. You’ve got to pre-plan not just one satisfying ending, but possibly two or three other possible endings based on the choices that the readers’ make. I also love being able to do something that might be seen by someone who is not a comic book fan. It’s always gratifying at conventions when kids come up and go, “Hey, here’s Batman #600, the first comic book I bought.” In the future it’s going to be, “Hey, I remember Batman: Arkham Origins: Multiverse. That was the first comic book I ever purchased.” To me that’s the big win here. Peter: Going back to video games and the work that you guys could potentially be doing with the game studio division, does that mean we’re going to see more I guess video game-based comics? More so than before? Jim: We have a very close and great working relationship with WBIE, but we’ve also done stuff that’s in support of Warner Bros Television whether it’s Smallville or Arrow. I think it’s anything that works for the technology and the channels we’re creating. I think there’s a lot of things that we can do. I’m looking forward to it. Evan: I asked Geoff Johns his thoughts on a hypothetical Superman video game maybe a year ago. It’s the white whale of superhero video games. People say it can’t be done. The stigma and challenges are too strong. How would you approach a Superman video game from a creative standpoint? Jim: I actually have a game idea but I can’t talk about it. [laughs] No. I think there’s a number of ways you can do it. There’s a number of ways. Yeah. To me as cool as Batman is, Superman to me is the ideal character for a video game. But I think also the technology has to catch-up. You’re talking about a character that can demolish buildings or a fight with a villain would take out a whole city. Before you couldn’t really destroy any of the environment that you’re interacting with. The technology in games has gotten to the point now where everything is destructible or getting close to it. Once you reach that level I think you can do justice to Superman and his power set. Evan: Are you saying Injustice is a big step towards that? Jim: Injustice is a great step towards that. If you look at Injustice, it’s not just about bashing the opponent, they actually interact with the environments and there are a lot of objects that you can use so to me it’s just an evolution of that that will get you to I think and if you play Injustice and see Superman he’s bad-ass in the game, from his finishing moves to his power set. Visually, it’s just a stunner. I don’t think there’s any reason it shouldn’t be a huge franchise. Evan: Who is your go-to character in the game? Jim: I would say Green Arrow because right now I’ve figured out a way to shoot people with arrows and they can’t advance them. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a way to do it but the kids haven’t figured it out yet. I’ve stymied the eight year old. Evan: I’m aware of it. It’s funny that you mentioned that about Injustice because the fighting community, the players who are really deep into that genre, they say it’s all about controlling space, about managing movement. I’m going to let you go here so that way when you come, I've got something for you... Jim: I’ve got my 12-year-old who backs up until I’m underneath something and they grab it and throw it at me. Like whatever. They’re taking full advantage of all of the things that are available within the game. I’m kind of a random button masher but I’m able to still hold my own with that. Evan: What else have you been playing? I know you’re a very, very busy man. What are you looking forward to in video games? Jim: BioShock Infinite. Skyrim, that’s an older game but something you can still play for ages. Probably the next Call of Duty. I’ve always liked the franchise. Just as an aside, it’s interesting in that game particularly, they are actually trying to create narrative. Meaning when you get to the final final boss, you’re just pushing buttons. There’s no skill involved. You just have to push that button to complete the knifing of the killing. They have to put that in because if they don’t now you’re watching a movie and gaming is all an active process just like reading is. You can see that we’re approaching the same problem from different directions. I found that pretty interesting. As they’re getting into the business of telling more stories through gaming now we’re trying to add some gaming elements within a story. You can see that there’s some similar tools and toolsets that we’re both borrowing from. Evan: A lot of readers who were on board with the re-launch feel some of the energy has waned from when the New 52 reboot happened. I personally feel as a reader like a lot of the creative direction is coming from the top down and not more organically from creators themselves. They’ll get a head of steam but then an event is scheduled and stuff gets derailed. Can you talk about that a little bit? Jim: I can talk a little bit of the perception of that. I would say it’s not necessarily reflective of a reality in that we’re not going to go out and publicly state what’s happening behind the scenes. To me all the coolest products I have done commercially and critically are all products that were collaborations between editors and creators. That’s ultimately how the best stories are produced. The company has to reserve the right to want to take character in fresh bold directions and I think creators need to reserve the right to tell the stories they want to tell and it’s all about the interplay between that. I’ll tell you some of the most successful comic book runs were instances where there was tension between the creative groups. It doesn’t always have to be everyone is singing and dancing in step down the yellow brick road. There’s cool things that happen when you pair people unlikely creators together in teams when you have editorial teams challenging the creative teams and vice versa. I would say it’s a little overblown and I can’t really speak to what’s really happening behind the scenes. But I would say that’s one take on it.

Snake's Cat's out of the bag: Kiefer Sutherland will play Snake in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain. The announcement was standard stuff, although I couldn't help but notice some notable, sometimes silly moments—like the one above. Let's recap with some GIFs. You're game for that, right? Hooray! Sutherland is a perfect fit, as far as head-bobbing Snake is concerned. Oh, Kiefer.

Mobile is the place for movie tie-ins these days, and Phosphor Games Studio is the studio to do them. Fresh off a winning stint doing up the World War Z mobile game, Phosphor returns on June 14 with Man of Steel. It looks quite punchy. At least we're not flying through rings, right? Man of Steel will be available next week for Android and iPhone for $2.99, with an HD iPad version available for $4.99.

Time to get our feet wet with the 6.78 patch!

Phosphor Games and Warner Bros. are bringing a Superman brawler to iOS and Android on June 14. See the game in action.

The sequel to Kingdom Rush is unleashed, Minecraft's been updated and Renée Zellweger stops by for a visit.

Unable to contain its excitement until next week, Gameloft rolls out the explosive teaser trailer for the next installment in the Call of Duty-aping Modern Combat series. I hope you like turrets. Sure, there are official Call of Duty offshoots on mobile, but if you want a ham-fisted story and a rich competitive multiplayer experience, Gameloft's got that side of things covered. Looks like Gameloft has inched the experience closer to console quality than ever before, just in time for a new generation of consoles to show up and raise the bar out of reach. Oh well. Can we at least get a Modern Combat dog up in here?

Be prepared for your first look at Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS this coming Tuesday.