Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: TruthTellah links to a video about the print-making process for Jed Henry’s Ukiyo-e Heroes project, which fuses iconic game characters and feudal Japanese aesthetics. JollyBootsofDoom runs down three flawed but fun games. And, Zarnyx explores why she’ scared of certain things and how it affects her game-playing habits. And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum.

Your parents come visit your house. Or the person you're dating gets their first look at your living room and your entertainment center. They see your hot new PlayStation. Sony hopes their next console won't suddenly bring you shame. The PS4 "was designed to be an impact product in an entertainment center,” Sony's v.p. of PlayStation hardware marketing John Koller told Kotaku last week, when asked to describe the intent behind the look of the new console. “We wanted the design to be something sleek, something people feel proud about including." Koller was talking to a reporter who opted for the purple GameCube over the black one, so please understand that what someone is proud to have in their entertainment center might vary. To Sony, at least, the research shows that people want something sleek and black. "We think it’s best, actually," Koller said. Not white? Not colors? Black? "The research we’ve done show most people appreciate that," he said. "For those who appreciate colors, we do offer them for other platforms. Nothing to announce here or plans for PS4." Koller believes that the blue light that crosses the side of the PS4 will become the machine's visual signature. It lights up when the machine is on. The console can stand with the help of a stand. Otherwise, it lies flat. As we noted last week, at least one of Sony's top people hadn't even seen the PS4 console until recently. Sony's head of worldwide game development, Shuhei Yoshida, told Kotaku he just saw it a couple of months ago, well after the February 20 public reveal of the PS4 DualShock controller, logo and games. "We were heavily involved in designing the DualShock 4 even at the time that no idea existed, because it’s the interface," Yoshida said. "We were there as a team. But the box, it’s just a box. When I finally saw it, it was near-final and I was amazed by the thinness and lightness of it. It looked already like the second generation of a console. I compared it to the second generation of the PS3. On PS4, first-gen is almost exactly the same dimensions. More than the aesthetics of it, the smallness of it. I am so psyched." PS4... it's got a nice tilt to it, and it's definitely less embarrassing than the Hey You, Pikachu! N64. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. Top photo: Eric Thayer, Getty Images.

The Saints Row series never supported modding, but now that it's under new ownership, that is about to change. Developer Volition will release "what is essentially a full [software development kit]" for the most recent game, and says this year's sequel is likely to get one, too. The upshot to all this is the PC version of the game can now get new vehicles, clothing, characters and missions. Given just how flat-out bizarre the Saints Row universe is, this could make all of those Iron Man, Skyrim and Star Wars mods in Grand Theft Auto look tame by comparison. Remember, the next game will feature something called The Dubstep Gun. And that's an official weapon. Power-modder idolninja, who had lobbied Volition to include some kind of mod support, said he was surprised by the depth of Volition's response. He suggested that this was never going to happen when Saints Row was owned by the now-bankrupt THQ. "I mentioned [to Volition] how Koch Media and Deep Silver [which bought the franchise in January] have a reputation in the industry for being fan-centric," he wrote, "and how working together would show how different they are from the previous regime's policies that forbade Volition developers from interacting with the fans at all." Sounds like those were the magic words. "Some of the ideas we have in store are going to blow people's minds," he vowed. The Modding News Destined to Change Everything [idolninja.com via PC Gamer]

Finally, a game for the platforming masochist who doesn't think games are hard enough. Cloudberry Kingdom's developers have spent four years perfecting an algorithm that develops brand-new levels on the fly--and it works.

The Evil Within marks the father of modern survival horror's return to the genre. A man of few words, designer Shinji Mikami explains why he's back, what it's like to work with an American publisher, and what scares him.

David Brevik's Marvel-themed follow-up to Diablo II has arrived, but is it a heroic enterprise or a villainous waste of time?

A sixth grader in China stole over $1000 dollars worth of money from his mother to spend on video game currency. After finding out, that he had stolen the money, the mother called the police to make a complaint against the net cafe that sold him the currency, gaining her a partial refund. People's Daily reported today that a sixth grader in Wuhan had stolen money on from his mother to purchase Q coins. Q coins are a digital currency used by many Tencent-related games and applications. The boy, surnamed Xu, had stolen over $1000 and ended up purchasing 3900 Q coins. The boy gave 900 coins to a friend to repay a debt and kept the rest. Upon finding out about this, the mother "freaked" out. Q Coins, once purchased, are non-refundable. Not sure what to do, she called the police. Mrs. Xu was directed to the Chinese equivalent to the consumer protection agency. A lengthy call later she stormed the net cafe that sold her son the coins. The owner of the net cafe said that there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, and that he was simply conducting business. The younger Xu had the money and the right to purchase whatever he wanted. However, the owner was wrong. Mrs. Xu was armed with the "law". According to the Chinese consumer protection agency and the public security bureau, the boy was spending outside of his means. They said that the business was at fault for selling such copious amounts of virtual currency to an underage minor, who "didn't have the means to come up with so much cash." The story is currently still unraveling, but so far it's reported that Mrs. Xu has received a $326 refund. Hopefully she'll put the money somewhere her boy won't be able to get it. Top Photo: Junpinzon|Shutterstock[小学生偷拿家中6700元购买Q币 母亲报警求助] [People's Daily ] 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. Eric is Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.

Despite all that you read about the tensions between China and Japan, Japanese manga is highly celebrated in China. Chinese people cosplay as Japanese manga characters, they watch Japanese manga inspired animations, and they read manga — that is, until now. Earlier this year, the Chinese internet giant Tencent signed a publishing deal with Shueisha inc, the publisher of Shonen Jump, and Namco Bandai. The deal gave Tencent exclusive cross-platform publishing rights to 11 Shueisha properties as well as the rights to make them into games. That's right, Tencent has the rights to publish games involving Naruto, Dragon Ball, and One Piece and the like in China. Despite the significance of this deal, it remained largely unnoticed until recently. Last Wednesday, Chinese manga fans started to notice that fan translated scans of manga such as Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach have been taken down from Chinese manga hosting sites. Fan translations serve the same purpose in China as they do everywhere else. Official translations take forever, prompting well-meaning fans to pirate the works and translate them. Sadly, the news that they would have to read manga through officials channels hit Chinese netizens pretty hard. Some are happy that there are official channels, but still upset [due to how slowly Tencent update their manga. I have gathered a few reactions from Sina Weibo, China's twitter-like microblogging site. kyon：I see...Tencent acquired the rights to Gintama, no wonder I wasn't able to read the latest chapter on my iPad and the sites I normally visit didn't have anything. They also grabbed One Piece、Naruto and Bleach. This might actually be a good thing. Now, domestic manga titles might actually be the same as they are abroad. 达林格勒:Tencent localisation also sucks. Despite buying such titles like Naruto, they do such a horrible job with the translation that it loses its meaning. I'm not going to read it until it starts making sense again! 啊疼eating:Lots of websites said they can't host manga anymore because Tencent has the rights to them. Visited their site, all the names are changed, I couldn't find anything! Oo伊芙莉特oO:Garbage Tencent! They harmonised (an online joke about censorship) my favorite manga! 如果_我是风的孩子:You'd think that the release speed of the manga would be faster now that it's official. It's become nearly nonexistent! Tencent is supposedly working on the first game of its cross-platform publishing deal, an online Naruto game. 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. Eric is Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.

Look, I know there's this underground movement trying to get Monster Hunter going in the West, but most people - myself included - just aren't feeling it. Mostly that's down to the combat and reliance on party multiplayer, but I'm starting to wonder if the game's looks don't have something to do with it. At least, that's all I can think of as to why I suddenly want to play this mock-up of a Game Boy version done by British artist Gary Lucken (who we've featured before). That and "Stabasco", which is marvellous, and should be trademarked immediately. He's even done two versions, one mono, one GBC! Thoughtful. Monster Hunter [Twitter]

Sony has a long-running tradition of customising PlayStation consoles, sometimes giving them to celebrities, a tradition that continues to this day. One of the men responsible for these amazing one-of-a-kind machines is Javier Riquelme. Over the weekend he shared examples of some consoles he recently had made for Sony, and they will make you look at your vanilla PS3 and just sigh heavily. Custom built PS3 for Sony by jriquelme [Gallery] mandioca gamer [personal site]

Somehow, porn managed not to be the first thing folks started putting on the Oculus Rift when the VR simulator headset started going out to developers. Well, wait no longer. Someone is building "the world's first erotic virtual reality adventure game" for it. Jeroen Van den Bosch and his startup studio are building a game called Wicked Paradise, and they're not using Kickstarter to fund it. Van den Bosch and his team believe they have identified an unfulfilled need in the video gaming industry—that would be good porn games or, hell, anything remotely decent. "We have hundreds of beautifully crafted shooter games but not a single well designed erotic video game," Van den Bosch, whose past development credits include Backbreaker's mobile version told Road to VR. Van den Bosch said other attempts were "ridiculously bad," with models that "move like rusty robots with faulty servos." The power of the Oculus Rift will help him build something vastly better than that unerotic tripe. "The non-explicit sex scenes in Mass Effect are much more erotic than current available explicit adult video games," he reasoned. "This is because you care about the characters in Mass Effect. A player will never feel very attracted to a virtual character if he or she doesn’t care. I believe that virtual reality is the perfect medium for an erotic video game because you can make the player feel really connected to your computer characters." Wicked Paradise will begin as a heterosexual fantasy game, though Van den Bosch hopes to serve later games that appeal to all genders and sexualities. "One of the biggest questions I had before we started on this journey was: 'Can a virtual woman inside a virtual world actually make you genuinely horny?'" Van Den Bosch said. The answer, he says, is yes. And why not. people get off to Internet porn, so neither technology nor virtual representations appear to be much of a barrier. There's more to the interview at the link. While there are no nude pictures, the topic is NSFW, and there's a YouTube video with some racy material in it. Exclusive: Sneak Peek and Interview — Wicked Paradise, The World’s First Erotic VR Game (video: NSFW) [Road to VR]

Mr. Iwata, Reggie (in particular) and Miyamoto have been great friends to the Kotaku 'Shop Contest over its three year history, so we're going back to them again with this pic from E3, which I'd like to think Nintendo shot just for your amusement. This one one was a mortal lock for the contest from the time it went up, featuring three good exploitables, four if you count Donkey Kong's head. It doesn't need much guidance from me. You all are the experts, I'm just the curator of your collective genius. Source Image: Satoru Iwata, Reggie Fils-Aime and Shigeru Miyamoto clown around with Donkey Kong at E3. While most of you are smart enough to figure out how to upload images, here are some simple steps to take for those less familiar with the practice. 1. Create your 'Shop and save it to your desktop. 2. Go to the bottom of this post and click "Discuss." 3. This brings up a comment window. Click the icon that looks like a picture. 4. This brings up another window called "Insert Image." Click "Choose file" if you're uploading your 'shop from your desktop 5. Alternatively, you can upload the 'Shop to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. Then paste the image's URL into the field that says "Image URL." Note: this must be the URL of the image itself, not the page where it is displayed. That means the URL ends in .jpg, .gif, .png, whatever. 6. Add editorial commentary and hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, upload the image to imgur and paste the image URL as a comment. I promise I will look at it. 7. Large-size images may not upload properly, though we have seen some big-ass animated .gifs upwards of 5 MB. If you're still having trouble uploading the image, try to keep its longest dimension (horizontal or vertical) under 1000 pixels, or the whole thing under 2 MB. Alright! Have at it. Thanks very much for your participation. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Rising pixel counts, falling prices. A lot of people have written off 4K is being something for the far-flung future, both because of its price and how long it will take for content to be widely available. To counter that argument, here's a 4K TV for $966. Dealzmodo covered it yesterday at $1080, and Gizmodo came away impressed with it at $1500. Your new Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Mac Pro all support this resolution, so 4K's future is looking better and better. [Amazon] Spoiler: There might be another One-Shot later today. Here's the latest Moneysaver roundup. Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. This is a Moneysaver One-Shot, a post focusing on a single deal, sale, or category. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

With Steve Jobs no longer around to tell us these things aren't elegant enough for his device, it appears we'll finally get a proper gamepad for the iOS this year. This will be one of them, made by Logitech. Can't tell you who gave it to us or where it was seen, but we can vouch for this image's authenticity. The controller is large enough to fit an iPhone 5. When iOS 7 introduces third-party controller support in the fall we'll see this thing, plus a bunch of others, probably. Apple evidently won't be making its own. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Welcome to Kotaku's Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics, chosen by our readership. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published June 12. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Published June 10. Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published June 10. Read more of Awkward Zombie Manly Guys Doing Manly Things by Kelly Turnbull. Published June 13. Read more of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto. Published June 11. Read more of Brawl In The Family Brentalfloss the Comic by Brent Black, Andrew Dobson and Dan Roth. Published June 12. Read more of Brentalfloss the Comic Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie. Published June 12. Read more of Virtual Shackles Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published June 13. Read more of Corpse Run Nerd Rage by Andy Kluthe. Published June 14. Read more of Nerd Rage

Late last week at Peking University in Beijing, China, men wearing skimpy underwear and carrying inflatable friends streaked the university's north campus and tried to jump into Weiming Lake. Then, university security showed up. That's when all hell broke loose. Note: This post contains content some readers might find objectionable. Campus security seized the men, who also were carrying guitars, and wrestled one to the ground. On the men's chests, protest messages were written in black ink. They also carried a small inflatable raft. The men were ushered away by the police. "This is performance art," Jie He, one of the protestors, told the Beijing News. The men were graduates of the prestigious Peking University and had hoped to go into the music business—only to find it incredibly difficult due to piracy, which has killed revenues. The idea was that this "performance art" could raise more awareness about music piracy and copyright protection. Or something. "Holding an inflatable doll while streaking is eye-catching," added Jie He, who wanted to create a stir online. This past spring, an artist named Li Binyuan caught the imagination of the internet in China after a series of streaking incidents in Beijing with a blow-up doll as well as with a cross. Perhaps this was the inspiration? Before this latest streaking, the university apparently got the drop on what was going to go down. That's why campus security was supposedly able to quickly intercept the streakers and their air-filled companions. Since the men wore underpants that covered their genitals with elephant-shaped cod pieces, the protesters dodged an indecency charge, but did disturb the peace. The blow-up dolls even had their private parts covered with tape. When asked if they thought jumping into the lake was dangerous, Jie He replied, "We are able to swim, and the blow-up dolls are buoyant and could always be used as life preservers." 北大裸奔男抱充气娃娃搞行为艺术 [荆楚网] 两男子抱充气娃娃北大未名湖畔裸奔 [新京报讯] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

Good news! Game Center CX, the great Japanese video game program, is being turned into a feature film. It'll be out in spring 2014 in Japan.

For the first time in history, we had a three-time finalist in the latest edition of the Kotaku' Shop Contest, which sought to make Saints Row IV's "Dubsteb Gun" even more ridiculous than it already is. But he wasn't the overall winner. Who was? Menome! (above) Duck season! Wabbit season! Wub season! Fire! First, the exploitable everyone was using: Now, on to the finalists! arniejolt arniejolt arniejolt Barnanator Bizwax Brandon0151 crzygun docherty Menome PennilessGamerLiam resdog sciteach Sean Mike Hollyman uroutnumbered Xelos Uchiha Zeruos To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Pyramids don't have a monopoly on terrifying head shapes, at least not if The Evil Within has anything to say about it. You might be wondering what's inside this fellow's safe-head. We got as close as we dared to take a few pictures and, frankly, we're not sure we want to know.

Years ago, all LEGO minifigures had a placid, happy expression and a pointedly non-ethnic skintone that fit their role in the larger LEGO universe: They were props, the same as a tree or a fire hydrant. But as LEGO has made more movie tie-ins—and video games—its minifigs have become more brooding. Darker. Angrier. Christopher Bartneck, a researcher at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, has concluded that LEGO minifigs most commonly feature happy or angry expressions, but the proportion of angry or combative faces is on the rise. Moreover, the angry faces and happy faces are not necessarily assigned to heroic or villainous characters appearing in the LEGO sets. Everyone's got a grim, or disdainful, or fearful, or pissed-off expression, regardless of alignment. "We cannot help but wonder how the move from only positive faces to an increasing number of negative faces impacts how children play," wrote Bartneck. Given that LEGO Minifigs have at most seven points of articulation, and are smaller than an adult pinkie, my guess is that children play with the newer, angrier LEGO Minifigs the same way I did: You grasp the minfig at his shoulders between your thumb and forefinger, make him hop up and down as you speak a few lines of expository dialogue (Something like, "I'm gonna kill you,") and then smash him into an adversary drop-kick style. Facial expression has zilch to do with that. Bartneck's research turned up a scale of six facial groupings, comprising "disdain," "confidence," "concern," "fear," "happiness," and "anger." Only one of these, "happiness," was "happy." All others could be taken to have some measure of aggression behind them, as all look like your standard closeup from a Zack Snyder or Michael Bay flick. And maybe that's the point, because now all LEGO sets seem to license the latest Zack Snyder or Michael Bay flick. But Bartneck's paper seems to cast LEGO's own early history in too rosy of a light. Even when I was eight or nine I never viewed LEGOs as some PBS toy. When my brother and I got the LEGO cop station, the first thing we did was make a huge LEGO prison, and then a giant LEGO A-Team van. And then we made another van, and loaded both up with bricks, and put a driver on them, and smashed them into each other from great distances across the living room floor. If it was a good wreck, the LEGO minifig with the happy expression was decapitated. This was in 1983, when everyone in LEGOLand was the same dull-eyed Stepford Minifig with that medicated grin. We knew there were questions you didn't ask. LEGO Set 6309, released in 1988, had five occupations: cop, doctor, fireman, air traffic controller, and mechanic. In four of those careers, lives are on the line every day. We knew they were hiding pain. But even the fifth one ... the mechanic .... What do you think he's going home to? Quiet guy, keeps to himself, slick hair, a big pipe wrench ... Smells like cigarettes and Aqua Velva ... WANT YOUR BOAT, GEORGIE? Lego characters are getting angrier - and could be harming children's development [Daily Mail]

What's happened in the business of video games this past week ... QUOTE | "One of Microsoft's best E3 press conferences to date."—Analyst Jesse Divnich, talking about Microsoft's press event at E3, which has been widely panned. QUOTE | "[Xbox One has] the computational power of more than 10 Xbox 360 consoles."—Xbox One engineering manager Jeff Henshaw, talking about the power of the new console. QUOTE | "I'm not actively thinking about retirement, but ... particularly at my age now, it wouldn't be strange if I were to just one day fall over."—Shigeru Miyamoto, acclaimed designer, talking about his career and his thoughts on the industry and Nintendo's games. QUOTE | "This is me, purely as a consumer—it seemed to me like two frat houses."—Veteran designer Peter Molyneux, talking about the back and forth between Sony and Microsoft at E3. QUOTE | "It has a very positive impact on the industry, because it keeps customers with the possibility of buying many games."—Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, explaining why he thinks used games are a good thing that should not be restricted by next-gen consoles. QUOTE | "Is PlayStation going to be a profitable business? It needs to be and it intends to be a profitable business over the next year."—Sony UK managing director Fergal Gara talking about the goals for the entire PlayStation division. QUOTE | "It's about what we do outside of graphics that will make a difference."—Patrick Soderlund, EVP of EA Games, talking about what EA has to do to make successful next-gen console games. STAT | $10 million—Amount that Chris Roberts has raised through crowd funding to make Star Citizen; the company raised the last $1 million in a little over a month. QUOTE | "The second you get the controller something turns off in the heart, and it becomes a sport."—Director Steven Spielberg, talking about the problems that keep games from being totally immersive. This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International Image by Shutterstock

E3 2013: case closed.

Prolific as he's been over the past few years, video game lyricist Brentalfloss has never topped his rendition of "Crazy Duck In Space." Now he's finally given the Chocobo song from Final Fantasy the lyrics treatment, and he still hasn't topped his DuckTales jam. I think it might be, quite possibly, the really odd Irish accent. Not sure why he went in that direction, but hey — wherever the Chocobo takes you.

I’ve seen things inside the Oculus Rift you people wouldn’t believe. And, for the most part, it involved the strange LSD-inspired indie game SoundSelf. In the video above, SoundSelf’s designer Robin Arnott shows you the ins-and-outs of his LSD-trip inspired VR game, which he was showing off at the IndieCade booth at E3. SoundSelf is not exactly a new project — the project met its Kickstarter goal last March. What has changed is the Oculus Rift integration, a feature that was not originally planned when the game started out. Having played it in its Oculus form, it's hard to describe the intensity of the experience. Imagine being in a virtual tunnel 3D telescoping fractals that pulsate along with the sound of your own voice, which is then fed back to you as an ever-growing, Bodhisattva hum. It looks absolutely absurd when you see someone doing it, but when you’re inside that headset, it’s absolutely sublime. It's like the virtual reality dream of countless tech nerds, psychonauts and cyberpunks finally made manifest after so many years. I went into E3 expecting to want an Xbox One or a PS4, but after playing SoundSelf what I really want more than anything is a Rift. To find out more, go to soundselfgame.com. A big thanks to Tim Hibbs of BigRedBarrel.com for letting me film his slightly silly experience playing SoundSelf. To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @papapishu

Mad Catz's recently announced Project MOJO Android micro-console (now just "MOJO") was on-hand at the hardware manufacturer's open-air booth in the middle of E3's West Hall. We learned a great deal more about the device's proprietary publishing ecosystem, or rather its lack of one.

Unlike the Ouya or other Android micro-consoles announced this year, the MOJO runs stock Android and connects to the Google Play store like any smartphone or tablet. This means that, rather than waiting for a game to be ported to the MOJO, it just has be ported to Android in general. It also means that the MOJO is registered to your existing Google Play account as another device, so any games you already own on your smartphone or tablet can be downloaded and played on the MOJO.

"We don't believe we should be restricting you, we want to be as open as possible," Mad Catz senior product development manager Richard Neville told us. "We just want to give people the most powerful hardware they can get, and that then becomes the enabler for the user."

Said hardware, at least on the E3 showfloor, ran on a Tegra 3 processor and featured HDMI output at 1080p, as well as two USB inputs, 16 gigs of on-board storage expandable by mini SD, wireless b/n/g interwebs and both Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Smart. The MOJO's processor is expected to change before the micro-console launches this winter, however, when the production unit's specs are finalized around the end of this summer. We were also told that the final version will feature an Ethernet port for hard-wiring into a home network.

No pricing has been announced as of yet, but the console will include a Mad Catz Ctrl-R wireless Bluetooth Classic/Smart controller, which can change between being an Android controller, mouse input or PC gamepad at the flick of a switch.

E3 has come and gone. As we head into the weekend, ready to digest all the glitz, glamour, and awful convention center food, Kirk and I have recorded a podcast for your ear-listening pleasure. You can listen below or right on SoundCloud: (Half-time music recorded by Kirk Hamilton himself.) Articles mentioned: Gameological Society: Who Do You Think You're Talking To Kotaku: The Rejuvenation of Final Fantasy Kotaku: This Nine Minute Metal Gear Solid Trailer Is Pretty Gross Conventions mentioned: E3

Batman #21: The last thing comics readers need is more material looking at the years before Bruce Wayne put on a Batsuit or his first year as the Dark Knight. It’s territory that’s well-trod by some of the best creators to ever handle the character. Yet, it’s also the most tantalizing time period for someone working on Batman. Adding another beat to the song that’s Bruce Wayne becoming Batman? It’s too impossible to resist. So here we are, again: Batman: Zero Year. I rolled my eyes hard when this project was announced but I can happily say that Zero Year doubles down on the thing that I’ve enjoyed most about Scott Snyder’s run on Batman: a more relatable, emotionally accessible Batman. Though he’s still pretty closed off, Snyder’s Bruce Wayne has generally seemed like he doesn’t want to be. Take the conversations with Alfred in this opening chapter. They’re less gruff, even as Bruce is brushing off Alfred’s desire for him to try and live a more normal life. Pulling out the lens a little bit, Much of this issue’s success comes from showing Gotham City as we haven’t seen it. Drenched in sunlight, filled with people going about their lives, the Gotham on display here doesn’t seem quite as doomed. Greg Capullo’s great art makes you can understand why Batman so desperately wants to save it. We’ll see where Year Zero goes but my interest is definitely piqued. Superman Unchained #1: Let’s be honest: Superman’s been a mess since the New 52 started. With the exception of some moments in Grant Morrison’s Action Comics run, the continuity reboot hasn’t really added to the canon of iconic Superman sequences. Unchained is clearly a book that’s trying to do that, pairing Scott Snyder with DC head honcho and legendary artist Jim Lee. The issue tries mightily to do two things: increase the scale and spectacle of Superman’s feats and give his personal life more resonance. Snyder, Lee and crew do a fair job on the first one, with a huge pull-out sequence in the print edition—where Superman saves a falling space station—that feels like a herculean effort. But the moments where Clark interacts with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen feel like they’re trying to hard to get us to care. I found myself flashing back to the Adventures of Superman anthology book, which isn’t as concerned as making Superman seem mythic, and that title feels more energized as a result. What about you? What sequences or covers from this week's comics made your eyeballs happy? Share ‘em in the comments below. To contact the author of this post, write to evan@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @EvNarc

Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments is a departure from Frogwares' previous investigation game, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, in a number of ways. Crimes and Punishments aims to put players inside the mind of the world's greatest detective, to see the world as he sees it and deliberate the moral choices within Holmes' logistics of justice. It's emotional and dark, and in a demo showing off the story as told in Unreal Engine 3, it already appears insanely effective.

One of the most obvious changes is the new "Character Portrait" ability, which allows Holmes to take a moment and examine a suspect or witness with his keen, investigative eye. As he scans the person, words in white appear over certain features, noting how expensive or worn down certain articles of clothing are, noting scrapes or signs of labor on limbs, and deducing relevant, personal information.

This ability in particular is inspired by the BBC show Sherlock, designer Olga Chalovskaya told me. Sherlock is, itself, a dramatic interpretation of Holmesian detective stories, and Crimes and Punishments draws on many of the same, human-driven tones.

The Clueless Gamer segments featuring everyone’s ginger-haired late night talk show host have generally showed him flustered and confused when holding a video game controller. This time is different. This time, Conan O’Brien whups somebody’s ass, both virtually and in the real world. In addition to the usual hilarity, you’ll get to see a good look at Batgirl and the General Zod character rumored to be coming to the game. Conan seems to think that the brutality of fighting games has to extend into the real world. It doesn’t. Get a hold of yourself, O’Brien; you’re making us look bad.

Everyone's got that one mobile game they're addicted to, at least for a time. For me, it was Jumping Finn. For a lot of people, it's Candy Crush Saga. This trailer for a totally fake movie about addiction to Candy Crush and games like it is a hilarious reminder of how crazy we can get over those addictive mobile games.