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Every summer there's a video game dead zone, a break between the games of spring and the deluge of the fall. Lately it's seemed as though that dead zone is getting shorter and shorter. But it arrives each year nonetheless. As we ease our way into July, it's clear that we're about to enter 2013's video game doldrums. The Last of Us has been out for weeks, but other than that, no major "tentpole" games have recently been released. While there will doubtless be a few indie and mobile surprises, July itself is looking pretty barren, other than the Brave New World expansion for Civ V on July 9 and Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 16th. (Though about an hour after I scheduled this, Telltale announced that the new episode of The Walking Dead will come out this week, so you never know!) In the summer low-period, we turn to our backlogs, to the classics we never played, and to our Steam library. What games will occupy our time for the next month? Let's do this in the comments. If you've got plans to play through some older games, or catch up on this year's releases, let us know what you're playing in a separate post down below. I'll go first.

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Games and consoles are currency, objects of dispute, sometimes even weapons themselves. Kotaku's Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. Cops Find Robber in Bed with the Evidence LANESVILLE, Ind.—When cops showed up to arrest Patrick M. Goines, 22, on burglary charges they found him sleeping—with the stuff he stole surrounding him in bed. A Nintendo DS was one of the more expensive items in his haul, which included a box of oatmeal cookies and a carton of Marlboro cigarettes. He's in jail facing five felony counts. [Evening News and Tribune of Jefferson-New Albany, Ind.] Burglars Use Famous Football Coach's Credit Card to Buy Console NORMAN, Okla.—Security camera footage from two stores helped lead to the arrest of two suspects who burglarized the home of Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops and used his credit cards to buy an Xbox 360 from a Walmart. Corey Jamal McCarty, 21, and an unnamed teenage accomplice are facing charges of first degree burglary larceny of a vehicle, and unauthorized use of a credit card. Stoops is 149-37 in 14 seasons at Oklahoma, which opens the season Aug. 31 against Louisiana-Monroe. [The Norman (Okla.) Transcript] Guilty Plea in Runescape School Attack Threat OXFORD, Miss.—A 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to domestic terrorism charges after threatening, over Runescape's in-game chat, to attack a local high school with guns and explosives. Joshua Brandon Pillaut, 20 entered the guilty plea on June 20 and will be sentenced later. Pillaut seemed a bit more serious about his threat than another gamer in the news, 19-year-old Justin Carter of New Braunfels, Texas, who has been in jail since February following a Facebook comment, which he said was a joke, about shooting up a school full of kids. Reports said Pillaut discussed acquiring guns, ammunition and making pipe bombs to attack the school. He will be sentenced after undergoing a mental health examination, and faces up to 15 years in prison. Interestingly, another man in Oxford, England, also playing Runescape, also threatened to attack a local school and also has been arrested. [The Oxford (Miss.) Eagle] Theft of Games Leads to Car Chase, Beating MARION, Ind.—Police say Shane Thomas Sheppard, 23, led them on a car chase after fleeing from a Walmart with three video games, a pair of headphones, and three Xbox 360 wireless network adapters. Sheppard ultimately stopped outside his residence, but laughed at a police officer's orders to lay on the ground and show his hands. That brought a knee to the ribs. When he still refused to comply, the cop "hammer-fisted his face and back so he would obey." A report goes on to say that "Sheppard sustained minor abrasions from the scuffle." He was being held in the county jail without bond. [Chronicle-Tribune of Marion, Ind.] Lots of strange things happen in the pages of your local newspaper or on the 6 o'clock news. If you see something, say something. To me, that is. I'd like to write it up. Remember: You need not reveal your identity. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Witness the next chapter in the elaborate and obviously well-planned "Divekick Trailer" saga.

About a week ago, burglars completely wiped out the stock of I Got Game, an independent game store in Ogdensburg, N.Y., a town of about 10,000 on the St. Lawrence River. The store hadn't even been open a month. Nothing was insured. The owner was in a daze. Then Brenda and John Romero walked in the door. They make video games. They know a lot of people who make video games, too. They figured they could help. "Here are these people who have taken the initiative to open a game store in a place where, let me tell you, kids need something to do, and then they just get flattened" said Brenda Romero, who grew up in Ogdensburg and worked for former publisher Sir-Tech for 18 years in a building next door to I Got Game. John, one of id Software's original designers, worked on titles such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Quake. "It was just this feeling of powerlessness," she said. The owner, Chris Pray, said he would stay open but he didn't sound too confident about how he would recover. So, on impulse Brenda Romero posted the picture you see above and a quick plea on her Facebook page.: "Game Devs—HELP? Donate a signed copy of your game?" "I had no idea if it would make a difference, but it was better than nothing," she said. It was a lot better than nothing. When Brenda Romero left the store and checked her Facebook page on her mobile, she saw Epic Games had already reached out to donate games to help the store re-stock. Others whom the Romeros know offered to autograph their work and send it along to I Got Game, too. "If Epic could have been there, right then, I would have hugged them all," she said. "Being able to walk back in and say, Epic Games—they're pretty well known, they make hit games—was sending him some games, I just felt so good about it. It was probably the first smile I saw on their face that day." It was a hell of a coincidence that the Romeros were in town to help, barely hours after the break-in. The family hadn't visited Ogdensburg in about three years and was stopping by to see friends in between speaking engagements. They had planned to visit I Got Game well before the break-in happened. "The first place we wanted to go to was the game store," Brenda Romero said. "When I was a kid, we never had a games store, we never got to play any games unless they got brought in by Sir-Tech." John Romero gave the store a signed copy of Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows and said he would send along a signed copy of the book "Masters of Doom," a book about Romero and John Carmack working together at id in the 1990s. Brenda Romero said she knew of other developers who would be sending along autographed work, and others who were sending used games up to the store, to go along with Epic's donations. "Getting signed copies of games helps the store out even more," John Romero said, "because even if they don't charge more for those games, they will get sold at least." Pray told the Watertown Daily Times that he'd push ahead and keep the store open, thanking everyone for their donations. I Got Game held a Magic: The Gathering tournament over the weekend. "We would really like to thank everyone for being so kind and generous," the store said on its Facebook page. "We appreciate all the cash, items and time that have been donated to the shop in the past two days. When this incident happened we really had no idea how we were going to be able to stay open but with everyone's support it looks like we will be okay." "It's a small town, a startup business, and we both love helping people who love games," John Romero said. "We make the things the store sells, so it was a natural way to help out." To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

If you’re in or near New York City, you should go check out this Friday’s tournament centered on Killer Queen—the action/strategy multiplayer game that debuted in a spiffy arcade cabinet at New York University’s No Quarter exhibition. New sprites and a new map will be debuting at the event. Remember: you can cheer on a giant snail. Who else will be able to say they did that over the weekend?

Here is a video detailing what will happen this week in the Giant Bomb office in San Francisco, California.

Wait a second...

Orlando police arrested competitive gamer Noel Brown Saturday morning, charging him with "domestic violence battery" for allegedly hitting his ex-girlfriend and another competitive gamer after catching them in a hotel room together. Brown, who is ranked worldwide as a top player of the fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 3, was competing in the Community Effort Orlando tournament in Florida this weekend at the Wyndham Orlando Resort. Around 2am on Saturday morning, according to an Orange County Sheriff police report obtained by Kotaku, Brown allegedly entered a suite in the hotel where his ex-girlfriend was engaged in an "intimate encounter" with a second tournament player. We've left out names out of respect for both parties' privacy. Police say Brown was angered, and attacked the second player, "striking him several times in the face with a closed fist." Brown's ex-girlfriend allegedly tried to break up the fight, and Brown allegedly hit her too, "causing a bloody nose," according to the police report. Shortly afterwards, Brown's ex-girlfriend called the police. The officer spoke to all involved parties, including Brown, who reportedly told police he believed that "he and [his ex-girlfriend] were still in a relationship." Brown admitted to the officer that he struck both his ex-girlfriend and the second player, although he specified that he had not hit his ex-girlfriend, but pushed her with an open palm. "Noel was very apologetic and forthcoming with his verbal testimony," the police report says. After taking his testimony, police charged Brown with domestic battery violence and placed him into custody. As he is still under custody of the Orange County sheriff's department, Brown was not immediately available for comment. We reached out to his sponsor, Stephen Cosentino of Unveil NYC, but he did not respond as of press time. Organizers of the Caribbean tournament Video X Games announced this morning that they "have decided to release [Brown] from his obligations for commentating at VXG 2013" for "personal issues." Several hours before the incident, Brown's team won the 3v3 tournament of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 at CEO, which was held in the same hotel. CEO is the final major tournament in Road to EVO, a set of events that leads up to the world's biggest fighting game tournament, EVO, which will be held in Las Vegas in mid-July. When contacted about the incident by Kotaku, CEO tournament organizer Alex Jebailey sent over the following email: I'm still recovering from the crazy weekend running the event so I'm unable to call but the incident at CEO was of a personal nature between 2 individuals and not gaming related or associated with the event since it happened outside of the event and after hours. As such I'm not assisting in it gaining coverage that can only hurt competitive gaming as a whole. I appreciate you reaching out to research this story, but would hope Kotaku, and Kotaku's interest in the 2nd largest fighting game tournament in America, is more positive and expansive than gossip reporting. With over 1800 attendees this year nobody on earth can be responsible for everyone's personal actions. Jebailey also sent over the following video, asking us to show the positive side of a tournament like this: The fighting game community, which consists of regular tournaments revolving around games like Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom, has received a lot of press of late. Last year, prominent fighting gamer Aris Bakhtanians triggered controversy when he said that "sexual harassment is part of [the] culture" surrounding fighting games. There are more positive sides to the scene, too. For example, the fighting game community has also raised over $225,000 for breast cancer research and handed out a number of student scholarships. To contact the author of this post, write to jason@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @jasonschreier.

The evil Thomas Edison sabotaged Tesla's latest invention, causing undead to rise all over 1800's America. How can Tesla fix this? Archetype Games hopes to answer this question in some form with their upcoming platformer-puzzler hybrid, Tesla Breaks the World. Randomly-generated levels, unlockable inventions, simple but intuitive mechanics and truly gorgeous hand-drawn visuals will all be part of the game's repertoire. So, what's the catch? Well, the game's not quite funded yet. Archetype Games turned to Kickstarter for help with finishing Tesla Breaks the World, which they hope to ship by Fall. Take a look if a platformer where a genius scientist dodges, outsmarts, and defeats zombies sounds like something you'd enjoy. Tesla Breaks the World! [Kickstarter] Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Don Mattrick, who's been the public face for all things Xbox for the last few years, will be leaving Microsoft to take a top leadership role at Zynga, reports All Things D.

Whether anyone wants another ROTT or not, it's hard to argue with bloody eyeballs on the screen.

Microsoft's Don Mattrick.

Here's one few saw coming. Don Mattrick, the current head of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment division, may be on his way to another games publisher. That publisher? Troubled social games giant Zynga.

The report, which comes from sources exclusive to All Things D, states that Mattrick is close to accepting a top level position at the company, possibly a CEO role. Zynga founder Mark Pincus is the company's current CEO, though Pincus has had his hands full with layoffs and various controversies since the company went public.

Rumors of shakeups in Microsoft's games division have been kicking around for a while, though most assumed Mattrick would be absorbed into other levels of Microsoft, or possibly take the currently vacant CEO position at EA. Zynga wasn't really on anyone's radar, but it makes a degree of sense, since it would reunite Mattrick with his close friend Bing Gordon, who currently sits on the company's board.

We'll update this story if/when official confirmation arrives.

Horror. Deadly robots. Perma death. Weird computer interfaces. SIGN ME UP.

Unless you're reading this on a cell phone or tablet, you're staring at a monitor right now. They are glowing portals that take us to work and play every day. What does your window to the digital world look like? I'll show you mine, you show me yours — that's how this works, right? Meet AOC Borderless 27 inch IPS one and two. For the past nine months, I've seen more of these twins than I have the ones that worked their way out of my wife a couple of years back. They might not be as cute, but they never smell and only scream when I want them to. I love the borderless look, especially when they're being used in tandem. I love the IPS (in plane switching) technology, which allows me to see what they're trying to show me no matter where my office chair takes me. And I really dig the award-winning design, which allows the monitors to sit flush against a surface without a base (you can see that in action here). One day I'm sure I'll upgrade. Maybe I'll go panoramic. Perhaps I'll get a monitor that goes higher than 1920x1080. I used to dream of having a bank of six monitors arranged in a 2x3 grid, so I could pretend I was in the Batcave. Maybe that'll still happen, but for now, these are my eyes, and I love them. Now it's your turn. What does your monitor set up look like? Do you prefer quality over quantity? Does size matter? Have you gone 3D? Is it your ideal configuration, or do you have massive monitor dreams? If your monitor exploded, how sad would you be?

Writer Neil Gaiman's first new Sandman comic in a decade will be out on October 30 from Vertigo/DC and will be shipping—sigh—every other month. The prequel series, Sandman Overture, will be drawn by J.H. Williams (Promethea) with covers by Williams and original Sandman cover maestro Dave McKean. Gaiman's Sandman series, which chronicles the exploits of Morpheus, the lord of dreams, in a modern take on mythology, is one of the most acclaimed comics of all time—and one of the most beautifully-illustrated ones as well. A press release from DC Comics quotes Gaiman's comments in The New York Times today in a story about a surge of new titles from the once-mighty Vertigo imprint: “In Sandman #1 Morpheus is captured somehow. Later on in the series, you learn he was returning from somewhere far, far away - but we never got to the story of what he was doing and what had happened. This is our chance to tell that story, and J.H. Williams III is drawing it. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.” DC will doubtless receive more positive attention for this prequel than the did for their last one, the 2012-launching Before Watchmen, which was made, controversially, against the will of original Watchmen writer Alan Moore. Now they just need to get Grant Morrison to crank out some new Doom Patrol. For more Kotaku coverage of comics, check our Panel Discussion tag.

Is it cool that Microsoft turned out for the Seattle Pride Parade? Sure, but some support of diversity is a basic expectation of such a major employer. Now, what is cool is the fact Microsoft rolled in the Seattle Pride Parade with a Warthog and Master Chief. The folks in blue are wearing pride-themed T-shirts with the UNSC logo. There are more images of Microsoft's Warthog in the parade here. The one above comes from this blog, as spotted by Francis (the rage comedy guy) via Twitter last night. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: More from JJtheTexan on Nintendo's lost games. PyramidHeadcrab wants to know if you've ever had a video game crush. And, DamsonRhee shares a great post about the in-jokes and shared experiences that we overlay on top of the games we play. And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum.

When SpyParty creator Chris Hecker says he wants his tense, psychological espionage simulation to be the most diverse game ever, he's talking triple-decker diversity. It's not just the races, genders or sexual orientations of the playable characters that he wants to differentiate. He’s also talking about the varying skill levels players will be bringing into the game, as well as the diversity of the people who'll be playing it. It's a game about human behavior and how to fake it. About how we think others think we're thinking when we know that they're thinking about how we think. First, let's review what we know about SpyParty: it's a game where one person playing as a spy essentially tries to imitate the AI-driven characters at a fancy cocktail party while completing specific espionage goals within a time limit. Meanwhile, another person playing a sniper on a nearby rooftop tries to shoot the person that they believe to be the spy. It's got a swanky new art style coming. It's in open beta now. That last part is important, because the influx of new players that's been coming into the beta has helped sharpen Hecker's sense of what he wants to achieve with the game. After the open beta began in June, Hecker says SpyParty saw a 50% uptick in users. With all that new activity came a few mean and unseemly comments about female players and the game's bigger-bodied characters. Stuff like that gets written off as par for the course in other online communities, part of the unspoken price of entry players pay for the privilege of facing against each other in heated conflicts. But one vocal SpyParty player going by the handle 'noche' didn't want her little section of online multiplayer acreage to be like those other communities. Noche spoke up soon after she started hearing offensive speech while playing and sparked a forum thread that gets at the heart of what SpyParty is trying to be and why Hecker believes having a plethora of diverse characters—people who look like they could pass by you in the street on any given day—will make his game better. Hecker: "When you start to make a game about people, you really want to double-down on all the things that make people interesting. Diversity is a huge part of that." "I have such a perfect community right now that I’m hoping we have a really slow, steady growth. I don’t want a big giant influx of people to swamp the community," Hecker told me when we spoke over Skype last week. "Because this game is so weird and different and hardcore but in such a different way from most games, that I really want that kind of inclusive community and the diversity of community in addition to setting the example in the game." I asked Hecker why diverse character inclusion would even matter to SpyParty. The core experience is a psychological game of cat and mouse and he could conceivably just stick any old avatars in there and it would be the same experience, right? Why pursue this as a goal at all? "I think that’s true in the sense that you could make the game with squares, different colored squares, and parts of it would work," he began. "You could make the argument that SpyParty—and all games—are purely mechanical at their heart, in the sense that you could make the game with a bunch of different colored blocks or [different] shaped blocks. That’s partially true but not completely true." "While you could get to some of the psychology stuff [with that approach], it is so much more powerful and so much more interesting when the game is full of men and women at a cocktail party. There are so many more subtle effects on how you feel while you’re playing. When a waiter comes over and offers you a drink, that does not operate [the same way] as [when] another square comes over to you and delays your time for a second. Or anything like that." "It really is like, 'Oh, I should take a drink. He’s offering me a drink. That’s nice.' As crazy as that sounds, that stuff matters once you’ve decided to make a game about people, which is my goal. There’s tons of Sims [games] but there’s basically no [other] games about normal people. Sims and SpyParty, basically. That’s starting to change." "There are some smaller indie games that are about people nowadays, which is great," he continued. Hecker's right about that. Games like CartLife, Gone Home and The Novelist all deal with more down-to-earth concerns than most AAA titles. "But when I started, there was basically almost nothing. I think it’s awesome. I think we need more of that. When you start to make a game about people, you really want to double-down on all the things that make people interesting. Diversity is a huge part of that." "The game industry needs more diverse representation in games. That’s obvious. And I guess there’s another aspect to the layers of diversity [that can be possible], which is the diversity of the developer. That’s something that Anna Anthropy and those guys talk about all the time. Making the idea of making a game more accessible." "But within the games themselves, there’s so little diversity [that adding some] just seems like all positives," Hecker observed. "Not only positives because 'hey, it’s the right thing to do from a social justice/societal standpoint.' But, [also] from the standpoint that my game is so compatible with exploring in that direction that it would be a crime to not actually explore it because it increases the level of subtlety. It causes you to think about cognitive biases. My game is all about playing with cognitive biases." "One of the aesthetic goals of my game is to explore consequential decisions with partial information. Things like racism, sexism, homophobia, all of these add tiny little biases that people might not even realize. All of that kind of stuff comes up in the milieu of the game when you’ve got all of these different diverse characters." "People can choose their sex, their race. There’s sexuality. That's actually a gameplay mechanic in my game because there’s a 'Seduce Target' mission and it doesn’t constrain you on who your target is. You just pick which target it is. Let’s say you were homophobic and decided if you were a male spy you would never pick a male seduction target." "Let’s say you didn’t know this consciously; it’s just something that came naturally. That’s a bias the sniper could exploit. If they figured that out about you—that you always picked the opposite gender as the seduction target—then, boom! Half the [decoys in the] party eliminated right off the bat." "I don’t want to be heavy handed about this," Hecker warned. "It’s not me saying, 'You must pick all different genders in order to play the game correctly.' It’s a natural outflow of the way information travels around in the game. I think that kind of thing is great." "It’s awesome to have a game where—instead of it being diversity in a cut scene, where you have a shallow kind of diversity, like, 'I’ve got a menu choice about who I have sex with in some giant RPG that’s not really about people at all'—every three minutes you’re making these tiny little subtle choices that can’t help elucidate biases and maybe make people think about it. If not, at least make the game a more interesting experience overall." Hecker: "We’re going to have a custom skeleton per character, which means custom animations for every character... As far as I know, there’s no game that’s done that..." I've experienced this aspect of SpyParty firsthand. The few times I played the game as the spy, I thought, 'Well, it will be really obvious if I pick the black guy, so I’m not going to pick the black guy.' But if somebody knows I’m playing and thinks, "Oh, it’s Evan, so he’s not going to pick the black guy," then I can go ahead and pick a black guy. There’s an interesting layer that you wouldn’t necessarily get in a game that’s structured differently. And, with Hecker's determination to have a cast of characters with wide-ranging looks, there might even be SpyParty cocktail parties with–gasp!–more than one black guy. Or older white women. Or handicapped secret agents. "That’s so different than if they were squares," Hecker asserted. "You bring in an entire lifetime of biases both conscious and unconscious to these decisions of what character you pick and who you pick for your other guys." (Note: You're also able to pick the avatars for key characters that you'll need to interact with in SpyParty, like an ambassador, for example.) Hecker says that he and the other creators working on SpyParty won't just be skinning characters in different looks. They're trying to make it so that each character animates in uniquely specific ways, with no repetition or re-use of virtual skeletons. "When we started doing the new art style it was totally with an eye towards diversity. The way most games work, what happens is the animation is done on the skeleton and then the skeleton moves the polygons around. A whole bunch of the characters share a skeleton because the animations take a lot of time. What you want to do is use the animations on as many characters as you possibly can because production costs are insane. Well, being idiots, we’re not doing that." Hecker: "Am I worried I will sell less copies because I tell people not to call people faggots? ... That would be sad to sell less copies. But if I do, that’s not the kind of person I want in the beta, anyway, playing the game." ..." "We’re going to have a custom skeleton per character, which means custom animations for every character. Now, the cost of that is huge in terms of time and effort and technology and all this stuff. People with limps. People in wheelchairs. Different body mass sizes like larger people versus small people and they'll actually walk different. As far as I know, there’s no game that’s done that, [in terms of] a custom rig per character. We’re going to have this incredibly bespoke feeling where every character has custom animations." "It’s costing us way more money and effort but I think it’s going to be totally worth it because the game is going to look and feel like something completely different. When you’re doing that, why would you not do diversity, you’re already paying for it. You’ve got this awesome opportunity." As Hecker discussed these opportunities afforded by bespoke skeletons and a commitment to populating SpyParty with folks from different backgrounds, I asked him about the possible loss of another kind of opportunity. Was he afraid of losing buzz or cashflow if players from other communities came to SpyParty and found that they couldn't talk trash the way they do elsewhere? Did he think that 'play nice while you're in my house' ethos could affect the way the game disseminates? The game's open beta costs $15 to join, after all. And, if too few people open their wallets, Hecker's grand experimental game about subtle human behavior won't find an audience big enough to help it thrive. (Note: players who pay up now will have a lifetime license for the game, meaning that they won't ever have to pay for incremental updates or the shiniest version of the game when it finally heads to store shelves.) What if SpyParty gets tagged as 'snooty' or 'overly PC'? “Am I worried I will sell less copies because I tell people not to call people faggots?” Hecker replied. "I hope I don’t. That would be sad to sell less copies. But if I do, that’s not the kind of person I want in the beta, anyway, playing the game." The San Francisco developer sees a matrix of interlocking diversity as crucial to the future of SpyParty. One element comes from the representations of the in-game characters, bespoke animations and all. Another form of difference is the difference in ability. "There’s diversity of player skill," Hecker said. "Handicapping games is really important. I have all kind of modes to try and handicap skill gaps." But it's yet another kind of diversity that might be the most important: the people who'll be playing SpyParty. "I would much rather have a healthy, supportive and interesting community that includes both newbies and people who are incredibly good at the game than I would an extra $15 from somebody who can’t act nice once they’re over at my place," he elaborated. "A lot of times on the internet, there’s this idea that, if you’re asking someone to change their language, that you’re violating their right to free speech," Hecker explained. "I don’t buy that. There is no word worth hurting somebody’s feelings for."

The Last of Us survives as the UK No. 1 this week after seeing off an attack from Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which crept up to make a No. 2 debut. So that's three weeks in a row for the Naughty Dog gripper, making it one of only a trio of games this year to achieve the feat, the other two being Dead Island: Riptide and BioShock Infinite.

The country's welcome for a physical edition of Minecraft puts the block on Animal Crossing: New Leaf staying in second place, although the cuddly sim only has to move one door down to third. There's even more moving about going on further down the road, since Minecraft is one of four new releases in the UK top ten this week.

Putting more Simoleons into the kitty is Sims 3 expansion pack Island Paradise, which washes up in fifth. Drifting just behind in sixth is Deadpool, while strategy sequel Company of Heroes 2 forms the last line of defense in tenth spot.

Not everyone can whip up amazing 3D cappuccino and latte art. Heck, the vast majority of us can't. But we still want to enjoy cute characters peeking up at us out of a steaming cup of java. Good thing there's this. Excite reports Japanese marshmallow specialty shop Yawahada has adorable hand-made cat marshmallows that you can plunk in your coffee (or hot cocoa) for instant 3D beverage art. Dubbed "Cat Cafe", each one is made by hand one at a time—a time-consuming process. The shop hit on the idea for this particular marshmallow after customers complained that another one of its cat-shaped marshmallows (see below) started sinking, head-first. How sad! Thus, the marshmallow wizards at Yawahada created a cat that poked its head out of your steamy drink. Besides the marshmallow felines, there are also cat paws that come in different flavors, like "milk tea", "cocoa", and "green tea latte", and that were originally designed for hot milk. Think of this as 3D coffee for the hoi polloi. カップの中から猫！3Dラテアートが楽しめるマシュマロ [Excite] マシュマロ専門店やわはだ [Facebook via Sanpasta] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

To the mindset of some parents and many Asian parents, video games are a terrible hobby. However, that might change now with the story of Luo Kehao and Carlos Xu, two young Chinese men who have used video games to gain admittance into two of the world's most prestigious universities. Originally reported by the Sing Tao Daily in Canada, Luo and Xu created GGS Tournaments while still in high school. Their creation, a platform for online game tournaments, helped the duo gain admission into the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University respectively. Luo from Taiyuan, Shanxi province and Argentinian-born Xu both attend St. George's School in Vancouver. They founded GGS Tournaments a year and a half ago, and now they have 1000 registered users and three advertisers. Growing up loving video games, Luo and Xu said they saw the opportunity to organize tournaments when they were in the 10th grade. Taking initiative, the two started a school club for their hobby. In their first meeting at the school's computer room they had 40 attendees; the room only had space for 20. It's always refreshing to read a story about how two young gamers have done something good. Sure, Luo and Xu's academic prowess and other extracurricular activities (as well as some other factors) definitely played a role in getting into the Ivy League; but that doesn't diminish the fact that their love for gaming helped them get there. Maybe now more Asian parents will let their kids play video games without making it seem like the child is wasting their time. [创游戏公司获青睐 两华裔学生入读美国名校] 173173.com Kotaku East is your slice of Asian Internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. Eric is Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.

Christmas in July? Not quite. Last Friday evening in Tokyo, foam started bubbling up, covering a street in the ritzy Ginza area. People wondered what exactly was going on. Apparently, there was an easy explanation for the surprising sight: forty liters of body soap. Asahi News (via 2ch) reported that the suds covered the street in front of the Shiodome Hamarikyu Building. A tenant, a production company specializing in commercials, dumped approximately forty liters of body soap down a 13th floor drain, causing the first floor drainage pipe to overflow with foam. Here's how it bubbled out (courtesy of Instagram user Nakad). Police and firefighters arrived on the scene to help shovel up the soapy water. Unlike the foam that covered a street in neighboring China earlier this spring, there doesn't seem to be a mention of the suds ooze being "foul-smelling". Some onlookers thought it reminded them of snow. Online, people said they wanted to dive in the creamy looking foam. No word why the production company poured all that soap down the drain. Perhaps, it had recently wrapped up a body soap ad? Save for the wasted police and firefighter resources, the building's management company said there were no toxic or harmful effects. No doubt the street felt refreshed and squeaky-clean. 東京・銀座、路上が泡だらけに　ボディーソープ流出 [Asahi] Photos: 2ch To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

This is Tessallation, a free puzzle game where you play with yourself. Well — copies of yourself. You play as Tessa, a schoolgirl with a cube for a head (don't ask) who has the ability to time travel. But it's not just any ordinary time travel; Tessa can travel back in time while leaving a copy of herself behind. She might, for instance, come upon a door operated by a button. She can stand in front of the button for five seconds, push it, then travel back in time, move in front of the door, and quickly step through when her copy pushes the button. Hence "Single-Player Co-op" — where timing is just as important as figuring out the puzzles themselves. Tessallation is freely available here, and should be a great distraction if you crave some mind-bending puzzles. Tessallation - Game [Wordpress] Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Attack on Titan is one of this year's biggest anime. Originally a manga, Attack on Titan has also turned its creator Hajime Isayama into a celebrity. And a target of death threats—a frightening number of them. Last Friday, a commenter on Isayama's official blog wrote, "On June 29, I'm going to beat Hajime Isayama to death with a blunt instrument! I'm totally going to kill him!" "I won't get caught," the comment continued, "because the Japanese police are incompetent!" The threats were copied and pasted repeatedly in the same comment. Other threats were also copied and pasted in mindboggling numbers (apparently, over a thousand times) throughout the Attack on Titan creator's blog. One asked which was better: Beating Isayama to death or burning down his house. Another read, "Go to hell! Dirty Isayama! Die! You idiot!" Etc, etc. Japanese site Yokoku was quick to point out that the threats did not seem like they were written by a native Japanese speaker and appeared to use translation software. Some of the words were incorrect or just plain wrong. Even if you cannot read Japanese, you can see here how the same threats appear reposted over and over again. As previously mentioned, one of the threats used the term "Japanese police", which makes it seem like the comment was written by a foreigner. And it's possible one individual wrote all the threats. Online, there's speculation that the reason for the death threats is that Attack on Titan character Dot Pixis was modeled after Yoshifuru Akiyama, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army. Courtesy of Twitter user Paul Guo, this is how Yoshifuru Akiyama compares to Dot Pixis' manga and anime versions. Back in 2010, Isayama admitted that Dot Pixis was based on the military leader. That revelation caused a flurry of recent comments on Isayama's 2010 post. Those comments were made last month. Most are in English, but there are also Korean and English comments protesting Akiyama as well as defending him. The controversy appears to be opening old wounds between Japan and other Asian nations, especially South Korea, where Attack on Titan has a hardcore following. That being said, it's important to note that it is unconfirmed where the threats are from, who is making them, and why they are making them. Here is a look at those recent English language comments on Isayama's blog about the general. They should help explain why some are angered about Dot Pixis being modeled after Yoshifuru Akiyama. Note that Kotaku did not alter or correct the syntax. Wrote Laila: I just feel so angry, when I see the words from the author. Undoubtly, "秋山" [Eds note: "Akiyama"] is a war criminal, a intruder who has deeply hurted chinese and korean, killed thousands of innocent people in the invasion of China and Korea!!! For me, these words are unforgivable. Wrote Describes: Yoshifuru Akiyama died in 1930. He has died before World War II, there is no relation at all with World War II. Akiyama is not a war criminal. Pointed out that the Korean people's misunderstanding. Wrote D: If you don't know anything about "the Port Arthur Massacre", please read the Japanese wiki. In your own language, written by your own people. For more than four days, innocent civilians were cold-blooded killed. Akiyama Yoshifuru was there when the massacre happened. He may not be a war criminal, and he may not be involved in the massacre. However, when his colleague committed this crime, he just stood there and did nothing. Which, makes him, a accomplice. Do you still think he is your hero? Wrote Kikaiyaku: There was no concept of "prisoners of war" in China soldiers of the Sino-Japanese War at the time. They were exterminated the Japanese soldier was caught, and if they were caught by the Japanese military, they were thought to be killed and in the same way. From such an idea, they take off the uniform, was continued resistance desperately under cover to the public. Look at the Japanese army to wipe out the straggler of the Qing army of the guerrilla, foreign media were reported as Port Arthur massacre. Chinese soldiers were often of guerrilla in World War II. For charges and the name of the war criminals, see the record of the Tokyo trial. Wrote I Don't Argue with Prejudiced Talk: Yoshifuru Akiyama is not a invaders for Korea and not a war criminal. If you're referred to as "invaders" the department was assigned him, when compared to current, USFK would supposed to be "invaders". Russo-Japanese War is a battle of Japan and Russia. See also Treaty of Shimonoseki for the independence of Korea. There is no exact data about the Treaty of Shimonoseki in Korea probably. The document exists in Japan and China. It seems like a message board somewhere picked up this 2010 blog post and fired up an online frenzy, leading to Isayama getting spammed with death threats. 犯行予告が行なわれている疑いのあるURL [Yokoku via 2ch] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Just one of 27 examples where bootleg subtitles, mostly from anime, go horribly, horribly wrong. More at Buzzfeed.

This is CATDAMMIT! It's about a cat, described by the devs as "a milkoholic hobo". His milk was spilled, so now he has a chainsaw, and he is destroying everything. It's being developed by Polish studio Fir & Flams, and will be out soon on PC/Mac. For free. Not free-to-play. Proper free. Can't argue with proper free, especially when the game looks this neat! CATDAMMIT! [Fir & Flams, via Pixel Prospector]

Anthony Daniels, the voice (and body!) of C-3PO, is a talented guy. He does the C-3PO "bumbling aristocrat" thing very, very well. What he does not do well is rhyme over beats. This long-lost commercial is from 1986, and is from a TV special recorded to promote the then-new Star Tours ride at Disneyland. It...just...It's so bad it's good it's bad again then bottoms out at excruciating. ONLY C-3PO CAN JUDGE ME [Everything is Terrible, via Laughing Squid]

Gotta be the latter. If Nintendo had managed to make piranha plants look like this in the 80s, a lot of people's childhoods would have been substantially more traumatic. Artist Karen "Dogzilla Lives" Main is to thank for this, but a warning: if this grosses you out, her other works won't be any easier on your sleep pattern. Dogzilla Lives [DeviantArt, via technabob]

Nintendo has never, and likely will never, do something this drastic to its most important game. The New Super Mario Bros. series is close enough, thanks. But let's imagine that, one day, the company goes crazy/pulls a Capcom, and decides to remaster the original Super Mario Bros. in "HD". It might look like this. Which, yeah, looks a little like Braid, which would be quite the creative loop to survey in all its madness. If you want to know who to abuse/thank, artist Joao Victor G. Costa is your man. SUPER MARIO BROS HD [JinnDEvil]