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Patrick returns from Iceland in one piece, and he's got snacks!

I loved Comics Alliance, the AOL nerd-culture site that was just shuttered this week. Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald has a great write-up about why the site mattered, what might be next for its former staffers and what its closing might portend for other similar outlets.

The Movement #1 I was skeptical about The Movement at first back when DC comics announced it as part of a pair of new series focused on the fractious class and political divides in modern-day America. These could be comics that felt horribly out of touch if the execution stumbled. The first issue’s out and I can say that there are ingredients here that I like: crowd-sourced social justice that approximates how technology gets used in the real world and a cast of new characters that riff on the X-Men/Teen Titans/adolescent alienation template. But, Simone deals her protagonists an extremely easy hand by making their milieu fictional—which isn’t so weird since it’s DC and their comics generally don’t happen in real-world locales—and by making the cops and their political ecosystem seem totally reprehensible. From the little bit that we get in this first issue, Coral City makes Gotham seem like a paradise. First issues are tricky, since they have to sell a new series’ premise in a tightly compressed way. I generally like most of Gail Simone’s writing, particularly her deft hand at interpersonal dynamics and her skill sketching out her characters’ emotions. Freddie Williams III’s art can run hot or cold for me. I’m okay with the exaggerated faces and proportions that seem to be a hallmark of his style but the art here feels too drenched in ink. I’m not sure if that’s Williams, inker There’s enough here to make me want to read through the first story arc. Hawkeye #10 This is the first issue of Hawkeye that I haven’t flat-out loved. It follows up on last issue’s switch in tone by introducing a character who’ll likely be a new nemesis for Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. Kavi—the hired killer introduced in this issue—is a mirror image of Clint Barton: a circus orphan who becomes a skilled marksman. And the more disturbing subtext is that Kazi’s emotional hollowness echoes Clint’s inability to make lasting emotional relationships with women. That stuff is all good but I was missing the lighter tonal aspects that have made Hawkeye a great read. Don’t get me wrong: this book is still one of the best in superhero comics today. But this new chapter will probably be bringing it to a really grim place for the next few issues. Superior Spiderman #9 I haven’t been following this book month-to-month but this issue was heavily hyped as a big one that would piss people off. In it, Slott seemingly closes a significant plot thread that seemed to be the path back to the Spider-Man status quo. (The cover is a big hint.) There’s no doubt that Peter Parker will be back in the webbed costume—maybe even by the time that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes out in theaters—but the way back to that familiar ground might be a tad less predictable. 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

I stare at the glorious handcrafted world of Blitz Games' Paper Titans for hours, lazily rotating each colorfully cobbled-together stage. I would gladly take a large stack of proto-form Titans, popping them out of their paper prisons and folding them to life with a flick of my finger. This striking setting cries out for interaction and exploration. What it gets is a great deal less exciting. I want to wander around with these pretty paper people, pulling at tables or tearing at loose ends to reveal secrets. I want levels to transform like discarded pop-up books. The darker side of me would love a little flame, nipping at the heels of our heroes as they rush towards a goal. the lighter side wants crayons. Instead, we have a platform puzzler that tasks the player with gathering three stars placed about each level, followed by an envelope with lipstick on it, as romantic and dreamy as the gameplay is not. We start with Collectors, whose job is to collect the stars. Then comes the Thrower, who can toss other Titans to reach out-of-place areas. Then comes the Exploder, who can destroy obstacles to clear paths. It's almost a mild real-time strategy game, emphasis on the mild. Paper Titan's whimsy is its strongest asset. No other mobile game has quite the fluttering, heart this one does. No other game links you to a page where you can download, print and build exact replicas of its colorful characters. No other game looks quite as wonderful as Paper Titans, but many of them are much better at keeping me entertained. Paper Titans Genre: Puzzle PlatformerDeveloper: Blitz GamePlatform: iOSPrice: $2.99 Get Paper Titans in iTunes

Everything about this video would be improved tenfold were it sped up and set to "Yakkity Sax".

Bento makes for an adorable lunch—many of us knew that already. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that bento also makes for adorable stop motion animation. YouTuber Mari Miyazawa has a channel full of bento. Some of it features tutorials, and some of it is what she calls "Bento Theater." Here are a few more of her creations. Make sure to hit the 'transcript' button on YouTube, if available. That way you understand what's being said. This is story-driven bento, you see. I'm hungry and charmed! 【アニメ】おべんとうたちのえんそく【Bento Theater】Waking Up [Mari Miyazawa]

I can't think of a worse future scenario than one in which Cronenberg-looking memory junkies try to suck my brains out through a psychic straw.

The things that stick out to me about Grand Theft Auto V are not the major things I was supposed to focus on when I saw the game in action at Rockstar HQ this week. But I'll tell you those smaller things first, anyway. There's a nine-hole golf course in this game. You can play it. You can choose your clubs. There is also a yoga mini-game in this game. And ATM robberies you can interfere with. And cars you can customize. And shipwrecks. And sharks. And... Sorry if I'm getting distracted from the main points of GTA V, but that's so very GTA, isn't it? The main mission path is well and good, but it's all the stuff that we can do on the side that draws us in. It's the swirl of activities—the casual corner-side chaos we can cause—that makes this series so captivating. GTA V is the first full-sized new Grand Theft Auto from Rockstar since 2007's Grand Theft Auto IV. It's been in development for several years and it's coming out in less than five months. But we know about as much about the game as we do of a book whose cover we haven't cracked. That's normal. Rockstar keeps most of the surprises and many of the features of their sprawling games secret until gamers can discover them with controller in hand. Until then, as is tradition, Rockstar reveals small portions of their games through trailers and through the occasional one or two-hour-long demo. They usually play the game in front of the press, as they did with me, proving that their game really runs though understandably not yet letting a nosy reporter just hop into the action and drive anywhere. Rockstar first told the world that Grand Theft Auto was coming back in late 2011. About a year later, they finally showed a little more in a second trailer and in a cover story for Game Informer magazine. In that time they shared two major details about the game: 1) that it's set in Rockstar's version of southern California, 2) that it stars not one playable protagonist, but three. When I asked them what merits this game getting a number at the end—we're not moving ahead a console generation was we were with GTA III and GTA IV—this three-character thing is what they point to. On the occasion of releasing a third trailer for the game (three-in-one, actually), Rockstar is showing the game again. This new showing gave me my first chance to see it with my own eyes. On a sunny day earlier this week, I took a short walk from Kotaku's New York City headquarters to Rockstar's in lower Manhattan. Visitor pass around my neck, I sat on a couch in Rockstar's demo room, fixed my eyes on a massive TV and watched some actual Grand Theft Auto V in action. I was flanked by reps from Rockstar, one who mostly chatted with me about the game, the other who played it. The one who played it used a PlayStation 3 controller, though the game's also coming to Xbox 360. There was no fakery. I got up and looked at the PS3 debug kit the game was running on. This was the real thing.. Rockstar's main point, this time around, was to make clear how huge a change the three-character thing is to the series. When I asked them what merits this game getting a number at the end—we're not moving ahead a console generation was we were with GTA III and GTA IV—this three-character thing is what they point to. They say that it fundamentally changes the GTA structure we've known from all the recent games. Coupled with one other major change they told me about, that sounds about right. This isn't three GTA games mashed into one; it's something that is designed to flow like no GTA—frankly, no other game I've ever seen—before it. The other big change to the series that might merit the number at the end of the title? GTA V is a heist game. It's a three-criminal, third-person, open-world action-adventure that involves about five or six major heists—major acts of thievery that will involve lots of missions to set them up, choices by the player about how to commit the heists and, Rockstar claims, the kind of big moments that previously were saved for the ends of their games. There's a lot to get to. Let's break this down. WHAT THEY SHOWED The Rockstar people didn't show me any of the game's big heists, so I'll get back to that stuff lower in this preview. What they did show me was almost entirely focused on the game's unusual three-character system. They started showing me that by launching the game and loading a scene with Franklin standing in a helicopter. Franklin is the younger black guy seen hanging out in strip clubs in this week's trailer. He lives in Los Santos and is a repo man for an Armenian car dealer. He wants to move up in the criminal world. As we looked over Franklin's shoulder we were seeing the game from about one virtual kilometer up, the Rockstar rep told me, noting that the landmass of GTA V is 3.5x the size of that of Rockstar's sprawling 2010 western Red Dead Redemption. Five times bigger if you count the new game's underwater areas. (Note: If you read other new GTA V previews, you can play spot-the-similarities, as I'm sure many of the details I'm sharing were shared with other members of the press. Here's another measurement from the cheat sheet of details I got and I bet they got too: the game's bigger than Rockstar's GTA: San Andreas, GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption combined. It's large!) Franklin's helicopter was flying over the rural back-country of Blaine County, the so-called red state region to the blue state city Los Santos (read: GTA version of Los Angeles). It was day time. There's a weather system in the game and a 24-hour day/night cycle, but all I can report is clear blue skies. Good visibility! We were looking down at mountains with scrubs of pine trees on them. The city was on the hazy horizon, the ocean beyond. Then the guy controlling the game had Franklin jump out of the chopper. Good thing Franklin was wearing a rainbow parachute. I wish I had a stopwatch going so that I could tell you how long it took Franklin to drift to the ground. Thirty seconds, maybe? A minute? Parachuting is a thing in this game, the Rockstar reps told me. It hadn't been in GTA IV though was added in the episode/expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony. Franklin landed on the ground, walked past some people who were fishing by a stream. We spotted an RV and a dune buggy. I'd seen deer on the mountain as we drifted past. And a wildcat. The Rockstar guy who was playing the game hit a button (or pulled a trigger? I didn't ask) and up popped a circular menu with three headshots in it. One for Franklin, one for mid-life-crisis white guy/sorta-family-man Michael and one for crazy balding white guy lout Trevor. Those are the game's three announced protagonists. The Rockstar guy picked Trevor. Suddenly it was as if some deity overhead grabbed the game's camera, pulled it to the heavens, up, up, up and then shifted it to the other side of the map, and lowered it down. OK. It was just a glorified loading screen, but it was cool. Now, we were on a beach. Still day time. Trevor was in his socks and briefs, blood smeared on chest and back, the apparently dead bodies of west coast members of GTA IV motorcycle gang The Lost strewn everywhere. What the hell? The Rockstar guys said Trevor is the series' most psychopathic character ever, but that he's charming, too. I'm sure the members of The Lost would agree. We'd left Franklin on the other side of the game's map. We were playing as Trevor now. This game's got boats. Trevor got in one and sped his way across some waves. Boats can contain scuba gear, one of the Rockstar guys said. Trevor put some on. We jumped out of a plane before, so why not a boat? The Rockstar rep on the controls made him dive. That's new: Grand Theft Underwater. (In case you didn't get the memo, 2013 is The Year of Going Underwater in Games, happening for the first time in series history in this year's new Animal Crossing, Assassin's Creed and GTA games (but probably not in any Forza that might come out this year—I'm guessing)). What I saw next was the coolest thing I saw during the demo. I'm not sure why it left such a strong impression on me. It wasn't the most action-packed thing they showed me or the most innovative. It just presented really well. We'd left Franklin on the other side of the game's map. We were playing as Trevor now. They had Trevor scuba his way to a massive sunken cargo ship. I started thinking about all the stuff Rockstar could hide on the game's sea floor, all the hidden treasure and wrecks and whatnot. Some fish swam by. Then came the sharks. The sharks circled Trevor and even showed up as dots on the game's mini-map. Trevor didn't attack them; they didn't attack him. The Rockstar guys say sharks can attack. Beware. The Rockstar reps then did another character shift and jumped to Michael. He was not stripped to his underwear. He was wearing a suit. This guy lives in a mansion, so it, uh, suited him. For demo purposes the game switched to night time. Michael was on Vinewood Boulevard, the glitzy strip in the heart of GTA V's Los Santos. He walked past a ranting actress, past impersonators dressed in super-hero costumes, and past a tour bus that the Rockstar guys said would have taken Michael on a tour of the homes of the game's sleazy celebrities. They brought Michael to a small mission involving an actress being hounded by the paparazzi. She was in an alley or side street off the Boulevard ducking out of sight. This wasn't a main story mission but just a small happening. It was sort of like the pedestrian missions in GTA IV or the little interactive moments—the stick-ups and escaped prisoner chases—that would pop up while trotting through Red Dead. Michael had to get in a car and race the starlet away from the paparazzi, winding his way up to the fancy homes in the hills near the Vinewood (Hollywood) sign. He let the star out at her house. There could be more missions with her later, I was told. The Rockstar guys jumped into an actual storyline mission. The mission involved the player controlling all three characters. Think of it as an evolution of the one mission in Grand Theft Auto IV that featured not just Niko Bellic but the protagonists of the game's two episodic expansions. The difference was that this mission didn't just feature three characters who would be playable in their own versions of a GTA. This mission would require the player to hop from character to character, controlling each one for chunks of the mission. Don't get the wrong idea about this three-character stuff. Rockstar stresses that the game's campaign is single-player. There's an open-world multiplayer part of GTA V, but they won't discuss that now. They dismiss the theory that the game's three characters can be played co-op. One gamer will play as three characters, they told me. The main storyline game is not multiplayer. The player will simply switch from character to character at will while roaming the game's open world and, when undertaking missions that push the story forward, discover that, sometimes, a mission will involve two or three characters. And sometimes the missions will be solo, as they were in the GTAs before this one. The three-character mission I saw was something of a mini-heist. It has the traits of one of the game's big heists, I was told, but is also one-of-a-kind. They didn't confirm but it sounded to me like what we were looking at was essentially a test case to prove out the structure and systems of the big heists. This little heist involved knocking over an armored truck somewhere in Los Santos. Michael had cooked up a plan and briefed the other two characters about it. Trevor would take to the roofs and serve as a lookout. Michael would drive a dump truck and cut the armored truck off. Franklin would commandeer a tow truck and ram the car from the side (an earlier mission would involve getting them). They'd all wear jumpsuits (players would have grabbed them in an earlier mission, too). They'd each wear a different mask (players would somehow pick them). They'd escape in a getaway car (the player would have placed the getaway car in an earlier mission within a defined acceptable area). Note the distinction from older GTA games there? Players have some choice in how missions are set up and play out, a possible re-introduction of or variation on the emergent flexibility of how missions played out in GTA III. The mission commenced. As the driving and the surveilling and the ramming were happening the game switched the player's control from one character to the next. Once Franklin rammed the armored truck and our characters approached the downed vehicle, the cops showed up. We were at a pretty high alert level: four stars out of five. The cops were bringing in choppers, and we were in for a shootout. I don't remember which character we first had control of, but from that point, the Rockstar rep who was playing the game was able to switch between the characters at will. Each character had a different weapon load-out and the switching was happening in real-time. The Rockstar guy had Trevor fire a rocket from his overhead perch. Fired it toward the ground toward cops who were approaching... Franklin I think it was. The Rockstar rep was controlling Franklin before the rocket even hit the ground in front of him. Unlike what I'd been shown before, all three characters were now in play at once. The two that weren't under player control were controlled by the computer. Rockstar says that you'll have to screw up badly to get your other characters killed. The computer will try to keep them alive and will also hold back and not let them get all the kills while you sit and watch. Our protagonists shot the cops. They raced to the getaway car which was where it would have been placed in an earlier mission. End of demo. WHAT THEY SAID Rockstar pitches GTA V as a Rockstar North production. Rockstar North is the Edinburgh, Scotland-based studio that has long led development on Grand Theft Auto. Other Rockstar studios from around the world pitch in, too, but Rockstar says this is North's baby. They say North is trying to make the ultimate open-world game, one with the biggest world, most diverse, most responsive. You get the idea. When you see a GTA, though, you can't really see this. You can only, as we did virtually-literally this time, simply parachute in. You see a sliver. And you get told about the rest and do some combination of taking what they're promising and planning on faith and accounting for what they've delivered in the past. Typically Rockstar has delivered on scale and scope with their open-world games. GTA IV may have been the first game in the series to feel smaller than its predecessors, but it felt more dense than the sprawling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I've sat at Rockstar HQ for demos for GTA: San Andreas, IV, Chinatown Wars, Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire. What they promise, they're usually good for. I can't remember anything they ever told me about that didn't turn out to be in the game. And when they're excited about a specific aspect of the game—the horse in Red Dead Redemption, the smoothness of moving while shooting in Max Payne 3, the mini-games in Chinatown Wars—I find that they deliver. Still, most of it is simply discussed, not shown. So you gotta believe, as it were. In recent years, they've improved a number of aspects to their open-world games. They've tinkered and gradually improved their driving and shooting controls. They have smartly added gameplay shortcuts to cut down on tedium and make the games fun. They've repeatedly tried and generally succeeded in making memorable lead and supporting characters. They have done well adding some modicum of narrative decision-making (in IV) though reduced how much leeway players have had to execute the game's missions. Red Dead Redemption, which was developed mostly by Rockstar San Diego but with other studios, including North, involved, also stepped the GTA series forward. That game improved on the visuals of GTA IV, populated its world with more randomly-appearing mini-missions and gave players a more satisfying, consistently-interesting interactive journey for their lead character. With V Rockstar promises improvements on all of those fronts. Driving will feel tighter and more aligned with what you'd expect from a racing game, they say. Combat? It'll pull in lessons from Red Dead and Max Payne 3, they say. A combat-ready jog will let you run with a lowered weapon at the ready; you'll see an X appear in your targeting reticule when you kill an enemy (apparently players in IV would think they'd kill a downed enemy, move on and then get shot by that recovering foe); a wider field of view will make shootouts more comprehensible, a combat roll and the addition of many more cover points will give players more ways to play through a firefight. This is what they tell me. I saw some of it but didn't control any of it. It's early going. The game's not out until September. They tend to not allow hands-on this early. They also told me that—finally—you won't lose the gun your character is wielding just because you ran out of bullets. That's worth the V all by itself. The Rockstar guys also told me how huge the game is and all that's in it. Well, some of what's in it: military bases, beaches, mountains, rivers, meth dealers, biker gangs.... the whole map is open from the start. Biggest weapons list ever. Biggest vehicle list, many of them customizable for looks and performance. Cars. Trucks. Motorcycles. Bicycles. Jet fighters. I saw a jumbo jet in the sky. Can we fly that? Not sure, probably not. These games have limits. The metaphor Rockstar likes for this game is long-form narrative TV with an ensemble cast. Cut from one character to the next. Skip the parts where characters are doing boring stuff and go right from interesting scene to interesting scene. That doesn't mean the game is all missions and no wandering. Rockstar gives every sign that there will be a ton of wandering permitted. They also give the impression, though, that the character switches will let them keep players surprised and entertained. Take that transition they showed me from Franklin walking off his parachute drop to a bloody Trevor chilling on the beach in his underwear. The metaphor Rockstar likes for this game is long-form narrative TV with an ensemble cast. Cut from one character to the next. Skip the parts where characters are doing boring stuff. Rockstar wants us to feel like GTA V's three characters live their own lives when you're not controlling them. When you're one guy, the other two are doing their thing, and when you switch to one of them, Rockstar intends to often surprise you. That's a neat trick, but I was skeptical how often they'd pull off an on-the-beach-in-his-underwear type of surprise. You guys might just have three of those, I suggested. No way, the Rockstar rep told me. We'll be doing a lot with that. The three characters are supposed to provide players three different experiences in the game's massive world and they're designed to make my playthrough feel a little different than yours. We can customize our characters (tattoos, clothes, haircut, stats—things like strength, shooting, driving and flying acumen that can all get better with more use), but we also can meet different characters as different characters. Rockstar expects us to be comparing notes. Oh, you met him while playing as him? I did that differently. You robbed that place how? That's not how I did it. That sort of thing. Each of the three characters even has his own bank account, allowing you to manage each one's purchases differently. These guys can buy property. The example I was given was a taxi company. It will generate regular income. They can buy houses, too. Rockstar seems more big on choice with this game that they were with GTA IV. Sure, that game let you make decisions at key junctures about who would live or die. This game's decisions seem like they'll be both, bigger and smaller. The characters already differ from each other. They're all unrepentant criminals, but they also all start with different stats. How we improve their skills and how we deck them out will make them feel more distinct. How they execute a heist may change things up as well. For the big heists, Rockstar told me, players will be choosing a lot of the variables: how your guys approach a place you want to rob, who does what, whether to go in guns blazing or with stealth, which other characters go on the mission. See, you'll be able to hire support characters and, if they survive, they'll be able to help you in subsequent heists. The more money you have, the better support characters you can get. Heists will end with an after-action report and the money from the haul divided among the crew. Rockstar says that each character will be able to have different experiences in the game world. Some events that pop up in the game world will only pop up for one of them. Plus, each has a special ability. That might seem a little weird, but get this: ex-bank-robber Michael's good with guns, so, when you're controlling him, you can slow down time as you shoot; repo man Franklin can do the same while driving; Trevor can go into a melee rage of sorts and deals more damage. This stuff is triggered after a meter fills. It might ring a Red Dead bell. or even a Max Payne one. I remember the good stuff from GTA IV but also the disappointing things. Niko's story dragged by the time he got to the New Jersey-like Alderney. Don't worry, they say. The three characters will keep you interested. Niko's friends could be annoying. They were always calling, trying to bug me, essentially, to play mini-games. Understood, Rockstar's reps say. Don't worry about being badgered, they're handling it differently, and the mini-games will be fewer but deeper. You can use the in-game phone to take screenshots, by the way, and share them on Rockstar's Social Club website. What about all that dating stuff? Relationships aren't a mini-game in GTA V, I'm told. They make the police encounters sound better, too. In this new game, we can still try to escape the circular zone that flashes on the mini-map when cops come after our malcontent protagonist(s). But, this time, we'll be able to try to hide inside that alarm radius, if we'd like. The cops will use a line-of-sight system, so they won't just magically know where you are. If they have a helicopter in the sky, they'll be able to see plenty. And you'll see them use hand signals to communicate what they're doing. Rockstar also wants us to know that we'll feel like we've got money in this game. We'll be using these characters to buy or otherwise obtain some fine gear. Franklin, repo man that he is, will be able to access some good cars early on. They were talking to me about being able to buy your own helicopter and needing to buy a helipad in order to keep it. The heists, they say, will generate millions. As for tone, that was a thing with GTA IV. Some gamers complained that it was too serious, that it wasn't as over-the-top and occasionally cartoonish as GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas. It was satirical, sure, but Niko Bellic was a serious man in a serious city. The new game isn't a return to the tone of San Andreas, Rockstar told me, but it's also not a repeat of IV. The weirdness of real L.A. affords Rockstar more leeway to have some fun with how things go down in this new game. Plus, the three characters might enable a variety of storytelling tones. None of what they're promising sounds impossible. All of it sounds quite good. A GTA with more choice, more variety, and less tedium? Yes, please. Do that. HOW I FELT The GTA V I saw this week is not exactly the GTA V of its trailers nor the GTA IV I played in 2007. I'm optimistic about it, but I must stress that what I see in advance never can sufficiently compare with what we all can eventually play. It's weird to see such a small piece of it, though it's exciting to see something as different as the three-character structure. That could be a huge game-changer. I enjoy the way Rockstar tells stories in its games and I look forward to seeing how they tell three interwoven ones at once. What they showed me, though, was all action and running through a city. What you see in trailers is all character stuff. Michael's not just a crook but a beleaguered dad with a wife and two teenage kids he probably doesn't relate to. Franklin's an ambitious lower-level crook looking for a bigger score. Trevor is a nut who lives on the outskirts. That's all story material and, combined with the action I saw, that's a GTA. Separated, they're pieces of the elephant. It's hard to marry the story and the action in one demo and it's nearly impossible to convey the best elements of playing a GTA—the serendipity of, say, the right music coming on the in-game radio station while you bump a cop car and suddenly are caught up in a three-county chase from the law that coincides with a beautiful sunset, some fool pedestrian yells at you as you nearly run them over and... there we go, let's jump that ramp off the highway and dunk the car into the river... get out of the sinking car, swim to safety, get away from the barks of the cops so we can't hear them anymore and then just bob there in the water, in the darkness. Exhale. Enjoy. That's not in the demos. It can't be. That's not even a story or a mission they can script. It just happens. It's always the best thing GTA offers. Nothing I saw this week leads me to think that that won't happen in the new game. It appears Rockstar's enabling plenty of that for the new game in its new setting. It's exciting to see something as different as the three-character structure. That could be a huge game-changer. As for looks, I'm honestly not sure what to make of the V's graphics. I never played a Grand Theft Auto for graphics, but I appreciated how good GTA IV looked in its day. I popped that game into my Xbox 360 again on Wednesday morning. It doesn't look as good as I remembered it. The GTA V I saw running on PS3 hardware at Rockstar looked better. That GTA V, though, didn't look as good to me as the one we see in the trailers. I suggested to the Rockstar reps I was talking to that their trailers are captured off of a PC, off of something that's pumping out better graphics. The version I was watching them play might be an older build, they said, but, no, the trailers are captured from PS3/360-standard machinery. I asked them this again, hours later, to be sure. Yes, they said. The trailers are, as always, running in the game's graphics engine, mixing gameplay and cutscenes, and—their phrase, not mine—it's current-gen footage. Maybe what they capture for trailers is just staged well. I don't know. Or maybe the graphics will look better and better as the game gets closer to release. GTA V is by no means ugly. It looks quite nice. But what I saw in trailers never looked current-gen to me. What I saw played in front of me did. I wish Rockstar would say they're making a next-gen version or a PC version, but the company line is that they have no plans to do so. Take that for what you will. I'd still like a GTA V that looks as sharp as the game does in its trailers. Graphics are as important as you want them to be. GTA: San Andreas most definitely looked like a game made on aging PS2 hardware. It's still my favorite in the series. I'm more of a gameplay guy, an open-world explorer and someone with an unhealthy appetite for good sidequests. I'm very interested in seeing how much of this three-character structure's potential Rockstar can realize, and I'm glad they're doing something so different and so outside of their standard formula. Rockstar has about four months to go to polish this game and deliver something special. Several years ago, I saw Red Dead Redemption at just about the same level of completion. It was about where GTA V appears to be now, so I'm hopeful about how this game will come together. At worst, this could be an interesting stumble of unrealized potential, taking the biggest risks I've seen in a GTA since GTA III. At best, I'm in the mood for a terrific and audacious new GTA. I hope they nail it. At least the shipwrecks part. And the yoga. And the holding up of liquor stores. And the triathalons. And the hunting...

This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go. Why am I here? What do these weird symbols mean? What is this place?

Hiversaires poses more questions than it provides answers. It's an adventure game where the player is provided no context for what is happening, thrust into a beautiful monochromatic world and forced to poke and prod through one strange area after the next.

This is the first time in years hearing "Eye of the Tiger" hasn't made me want to punch everything in sight.

The truth is out there. Or in here. The mug isn't clear on this question.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: A pair of reader reviews covers recent downloadable titles. Contributor AzureGuy offers his thoughts on trippy first-person brawler Zeno Clash II and Tjoeb123 takes Black Rock Shooter out for a spin. And PsychoSmiley looks at games that had great ideas but failed to garner enough acclaim or attention. Have you played Zeno Clash II or Black Rock Shooter? What do you think? And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum.

Someone just made a faux dating sim—in line with a game like Katawa Shoujo—using Korea's top StarCraft II players. Thank god the StarCraft esports scene is full of great personalities and players, because a funny dating sim like this would actually work. The two guys featured here—SK_MC and Marinekingprime—have been competing since the launch of StarCraft II. They are still among the best with a stable fanbase, so they were perfect choice. Starcraft 2: The Dating Simulator [YouTube] To contact the author of this post, write to gergovasATkotaku.com

I was a little over 13 when I read the first book in UK game designer Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series of Fighting Fantasy books. Enhancing the page-turning elements of the Choose Your Own Adventure books with pen-and-paper role-playing game mechanics, the series instilled in me a voracious appetite for interactive fiction. Twenty-seven years later the series returns in digital form, bringing the genre and my appreciation to a whole new level. The Fighting Fantasy books, created by Jackson and Ian Livingston, assign players stats that ebb and flow as the narrative carries them back and forth between story segments. Make too many wrong decisions and your character dies, and the story ends (unless you cheat, for shame). Jackson's four-part Sorcery! series — The Shamutanti Hills; Khare: Cityport of Traps; The Seven Serpents and The Crown of Kings — added deeper RPG elements to the formula. Players could choose to be a sorcerer, choosing from a memorized list of three letter spells to aid them in any given situation. Or players could choose the path of the warrior, doing battle with enemies the old-fashioned way. Freed to travel more paths than the page-borne version, Inkle's gorgeous digital interpretation of Steve Jackson's classic adventure allows players to experience both sides of the might-and-magic coin. The three letter spell casting? It's right here. And the fighting? Captured wonderfully in a rock-paper-scissors style dance of defense and assault, acted out with paper sketches and narrated via procedurally-generated text. While the heart of the story is still the quest for the Crown of Kings, an artifact that bestows magical leadership abilities upon the wearer, the story unfolding across the gorgeous hand-drawn 3D world map truly belongs to the player. Powered by Inkle's Inklewriter technology, it's not just the fighting text that changes dynamically based on the player's actions — it's the entire story. There are thousands of choices for the player/reader to make in Sorcery!, each on taking the story in a slightly different direction. Do you spend your gold on rations, or save it to spend on magical items and weapons? Do you sleep in the village, or pass on through? Do you struggle against the headhunters and die, or resign yourself to your fate and also die — headhunters are assholes. This is a game with bountiful replayability, and you never have to worry about your copy getting dog-earned or torn. The Fighting Fantasy books were a wondrous feat of interactive fiction, each page brimming with possibilities and dripping with tension. Inkle's adaptation of the Sorcery! takes the genre to a whole new level. Unless the headhunters show up. Seriously, they're bastards. Steve Jackson's Sorcery! Genre: Choose Your Own AdventureDeveloper: InklePlatform: iOSPrice: $4.99 Get Sorcery! in iTunes

Last week, we asked readers to submit their stories of gaming while unemployed or underemployed. We received over 100 submissions. Today we'd like to share some of them. When you don't have much money, gaming is more than just a hobby: it's a necessary distraction. Games can help you get through the day. We heard from a number of people who found all sorts of ways to keep playing games without spending much money. Here are some of their stories: 'I'm Not A Thief' While technically unemployed, I tend to pick up a few hours here or there doing painting jobs. Though work is seldom available, I always have in the back of my mind I'd have cash at some point. Last year I sold all of my games, about 5-6, to buy Skyrim. I got caught up in the craze that any game that came out I would only buy if it was similar to Skyrim or something like it. Thus when Far Cry 3 was coming out and the inevitable "Skyrim with guns" comparison started happening, I needed it. I waited about 2 months for one to finally be available at my local Redbox and the day that one popped up, I rented it. I pretty much knew at that point I wouldn't be returning it. I'm not a thief and I feel guilty about what I did, but I just couldn't spend $60 I didn't have on a game that I wasn't even sure would be worth it. So I "stole" it with the assumption that after a month when they finally charged me for it I'd have the money for them. Might not have been smart or even saved me money but I did it, and now I have it. 'I Had To Sell Plasma Every Damn Week' My time as an unemployed gamer was probably the worst best thing to ever happen. I say this because I came to the conclusion that most games are not worth 60 dollars. I learned my lesson after the “crapfest” which was Resistance 3 (anyone that played and enjoyed R2 and tried R3 would understand). The game was worth 13 bucks at Best Buy 10 days after the release... 20 bucks on Amazon. I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought the game was that bad. What’s worse than being an unemployed gamer is being an unemployed “Arcade” gamer. I live in Southern California where arcades still exist, but I would be fine playing on a console 365 days a year. However, since I’m a huge fan of music simulator games (Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up and all those other games), and not many console versions of those games are being released anymore (except those iPad/Android games), I’m stuck going to an arcade. How'd I save money as an “unemployed arcade gamer"? I had to sell plasma every damn week. It is 20 miles to travel from where I’m staying to the valley. 40-mile round trip. Two times a week for a grand total of 70 bucks. First visit you get 30 dollars. Second visit you get 40 dollars. And on the sixth visit of the month you get a 10 dollar bonus… 50 dollars. I’m straight up hood rich during that 3rd week of the month. 290 bucks a month that’s covering bills and whatever female I trick to go out on a date with me. Unemployment checks... what’s that? Chilling on a bed, pumping my fist while a needle in my arm, sucking out blood and putting it in with crack heads, skaters, hustlers and people who need to get their weed fix, all while watching some movie to prevent me from sleeping sounds a lot more exciting. Next, I have to scavenge for change everywhere and anywhere. You see something shiny on the ground, you have to inspect it. You see a dollar anywhere, get ready to grab and it claim it first. My mom got a water jug that’s full of change... I’m going through and collecting any much change that’s not a penny as I can with the quarters first. Someone at the gym had change in their pocket and it all fell on the floor and just left it there... just came up on 65 cents. You have to collect or as I would say it “rack up” as much change as possible before going to CoinStar. 8.9 cents for every dollar and I need to have as much as possible because this means gas, games, and whatever the EBT can’t cover. 'There's No Shame In Renting' I no longer fall into this category, but what I did to accommodate my unemployed/underemployed lifestyle still applies today. I used to have a well-paying job, until things went sour. After that day, I was unemployed for 3 months before falling back in to a less-than-$20k retail job. I used to buy games all the time with the former job. If something piqued my interest, even remotely, I bought it. When you go from $40k to nothing, the random games can't be that interesting any longer. So I started up GameFly and rented just about every game that I would have bought. Sure, if there was a major game I knew I was going to enjoy, I bought it. Even now, in a completely different field making what I did before slumping back into retail, I still have GameFly, buying major games, renting the rest, and buying/adding to my collection those I rented when they go on sale/bargain bins. I used to buy about 2-5 games a month that wasn't November. I'm buying about one game a month now (except March; BioShock and Tomb Raider wouldn't stop calling me), and I don't see myself going back to my old ways. TL;DR == There's no shame in renting. 'Swipe Now, Pay... Whenever' Greetings from the Philippines. I'm not exactly unemployed, and from how I understand or defined under-employed is, well, not getting paid enough. Lol. Either way, to add to the topic. A couple of years back (when I did not have a girlfriend) I always had a budget to buy brand new games. But when I did have a girlfriend (and now planning and saving up for a wedding) what I do now is, try to wait for most of the new games to pass their time, and then just buy them pre-owned. But for the 'blockbusters,' I save up for them by lets say, 'dieting' (eating at cheaper places) just so I can buy a game (for example, Tomb Raider a few weeks back, and now, am preparing for The Last of Us). Also, usually, when some of the hit games are released, we'd have our bonuses at work (i.e. Christmas) and will take a part from it to buy a game. If all else fails, there's always the good old credit card. Swipe and play now, pay... whenever. Lol. My most recent game purchase (unplanned, and unbudgeted) would be Simcity. I never planned on buying it considering that I don't have a gaming rig, but it just sounded and looked too cool to pass up. 'Volunteer As Staff' If you're truly living on the margin like myself, with no money for games or even the consoles themselves (and you're not a hardcore gamer), my personal favourite way to gain access to all the best games of the year is to volunteer as staff for an anime/gaming convention. Most conventions where I live are small and are willing to take on anyone so long as you're a good worker, for a few hours here and there over a weekend, and your reward is free access to a convention, including all the latest and greatest games in the games room, with almost no cost to yourself (especially if you can find someone who doesn't mind you crashing on their floor and if you can share a lift with someone to and from the place). Other tricks include entering every single raffle you can find (how I got my PS2) as around the release of a console, there are always a few giveaways (the more local, the better). If you have gamer friends, ask can you borrow their games when they're done (this one only really works if you have access to a console, or it's a handheld console) . Car-boot sales are also insanely good value if you are looking for old games (I've gotten 20 PS2 games for 5 before!). 'I Suggest No One Push Off Bills For Video Games' Under-employed is the perfect verbage to describe the last five years of my video game life. There's been plenty of games I've bought that I shouldn't have, like the new Call of Duty or Rock Band. After I buy them I struggle to move money around to pay bills and often times find myself paying just the past due on the bill because I bought a game. It's a horrible circle to fall into and it's hard to get out of, I suggest no one push off bills for video games. What I've been doing for a while now is taking advantage of trading games in. Hear me out, don't cry foul just yet. I know, I know, GameStop doesn't pay people enough for their games. To that I say, I disagree. I may be the only person on the planet that accepts GameStop is a business, and out to make money. I never walk into the store thinking, "this game is worth at least this amount." Instead, I go in thinking, "I'm taking these guys to the cleaners." I make sure I'm getting the best trade-in values, be it through a weekly promotion or through the Power-Up rewards program. Then I make sure I'm buying used, I rarely buy new. I also check to see if the game or games I want are on sale. I go into GameStop armed with knowledge and games and walk out a happy customer every single time. Want proof it works? I traded in Duke Nukem Forever, Modern Warfare 3, LA Noire and Gears of War 2 and was able to buy Black Ops 2 brand new without putting any of my own cash down. Having few hours at work and barely making enough to support my kids, I have to make sure I get the most out of my trade ins or money. Knowledge is power in the right hands. 'It Helps Us To Have Fun' I’m and 26 year old PhD student who certainly fits in your category. I’ve been trying since college graduation to find employment. I only planned on a little master’s work. To say it’s been hard is an understatement. My wife lost her job as a secretary recently and used the opportunity to switch careers. We are on a very limited budget but still find time to play games. Some may say it’s a waste or irresponsible to buy games in this situation but we don’t pay for cable, rarely eat out, and both pick up odd jobs to cover cost. Being unemployed and underemployed is not only hard on your finances but hard on you emotionally and psychologically. It helps us to have something fun to do once in a while. A friend of mine or my brother usually split games with me. Recently, he got Dead Space 3 and I picked up Infinite. When we are done we trade so we essentially get two for one. Other than that I have been sticking with cheaper options. I’ve gone back to get some DLC for 10$-20$ rather than buying a new game. My wife even picked up Fable 2, it was 2.50$ because she had wanted to play it but never did. So if I have any advice for the broke-but-not-bored; get friends together and split cost, find some older games you may have missed and get them on the cheap, or pick up some DLC for something you have. 'You Don't Need To Buy Games, Ever' Turns out that as long as you have a few GameStops in your area, and a flexible $54.99, you don't need to buy games, ever. GameStop has an awesome exploitable return policy that lets you buy *pre-owned* games and return them 7 days later for a full refund however you originally paid for it, plus sales tax. Now, if the store is a relatively crabby store and gets tired of you doing it, they'll tell you so, but can't necessarily cut you off. I live in a town with 4 stores. I buy a game, keep my receipt, and bring the game back in 7 days. Fiance and I just finished BioShock. Fantastic game. Are you or have you ever been unemployed or underemployed? Would you like to share your story? Send an e-mail to jason@kotaku.com with the subject "Unemployed Gamers" along with how much money you make, how much money you spend on games, and any other details you'd like to share. All senders will be kept anonymous.

Firaxis Games' (XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Civilization) free-to-play mobile game Haunted Hollow is available now on the iOS App Store. As we noted last week - when the game accidentally launched the first time - Haunted Hollow takes place over a series of one-on-one, tug-of-war style matches in which players scare the local villagers.

Firaxis also has another iOS title ready to fly in with Ace Patrol, a World War I dogfighting tactics game by strategy game guru Sid Meier himself, which will be available May 9 as a free download.

Zeno Clash returns to pump Brad and Patrick full of premium grade nightmare juice.

There's acting, overacting, and this. Whatever the hell this is, it's amazing. Here are reaction shots from a South Korean TV drama called Maybe Love (사랑했나봐). The show follows the exploits of a woman whose life is destroyed after her best friend steals her husband. Here's the show's official English description via the program's Korean network: A frenemy who wrecks a woman's life and does all this for the sake of her daughter. How will justice prevail in their lives? How will it? With truly fantastic reaction shots, that's how. Here's a small sample of Maybe Love uncut, pure emotions: Oh, sorry. Turn the sound down. Mmmm... Jerky. The man is saying (as YouTube user bosukbanji points out), "Why did Sun-jung take Yena? She is not her daughter." The woman replies, "Yena is Sun-jung's daughter." Then, BAM, reaction shot. And here's the dubstep remix: And the PSY remix: YEP. 아침드라마의 흔한 분노연기 [NekoAsuna@YouTube] 아침드라마 놀라는 연기 [hyeon min Son@YouTube] 아침드라마의 흔한 육포 먹방 1탄 [ajtwlswldus@YouTube via ロケットニュース] 지딸도 아닌 예나 (dubstep remix) / yena (dubstep remix) [hehejsm@YouTube] GENTLEMAN REMIX (Feat. 지딸) [DDOLGGY] 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.

People in Japan have argued that the console gaming market is dying. Whether that argument is valid or not, they now have another piece of ammunition to point to as proof. The Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association – or CESA as it will henceforth be referred to as since abbreviations are much easier on the tongue – has released the results of their annual survey in which the number of people participating in the use of home consoles in Japan has decreased by over 2 million from 31.4 million in 2012 to 29.1 million in 2013. Obviously, there are likely numerous valid reasons behind this decrease, most glaring being the obvious increase smartphone games and the growing mobile market. Fewer people may be playing consoles, but that doesn't necessarily mean there are fewer gamers. Some people have, perhaps, moved over to smartphones for their fix. Also in the report, of a sample group of 300 console users, roughly 10% answered that they had used illegal copies or unofficial hacking hardware/software in the past. CESA's 193-page report is rather extensive, covering details from game-play hours, preferred genres, characteristics of users of different consoles, online game use, computer game use, arcade game use, feedback on the topic of video games and their effect on people, and so forth. The report has been released in book form and is available in stores in Japan for a friggin' ￥6,300 (US$64.71). 10.3%がゲームを違法にプレイ、家庭用ゲーム参加者は1年間で232万人減・・・CESAが調査[GameBusiness.jp] 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.

So, it's time to take a look at the newest addition to my Hot Toys Movie Masterpieces collection, Black Widow. So, first off, because the question will inevitably be asked in the comments section: Yes, I ordered and paid for this figure myself. Yes, the clothes are removable. No, the figure is not anatomically correct. And no, I do not have pictures. If you want naked pictures of a 12-inch Scarlett Johansson figure, buy one and take them yourself. Now that that's out of the way… Once again, Hong Kong collectible toy company, Hot Toys, has worked overtime on the facial details of Black Widow. While the likeness is not 100%, it's close enough to be recognizable. The extra detail in getting the skin to look real is outstanding. An interesting feature for this figure not present in many others is the fact that the hair is real. This is both a blessing and a curse in that while the hair adds a level of reality to the figure, the hairstyle can be difficult to control and straight out of the box, is very flat and compressed and needs a lot of coaxing to look even marginally right (The instruction manual even suggests the use of hair styling products). Mobility-wise, the figure suffers a lot less restrictiveness from its suit than other Hot Toys figures, but the smaller size of the frame means the limbs are more fragile and more care should probably be taken when setting up poses. The suit itself looks damn cool and is a satisfyingly detailed miniaturized recreation of Black Widow's movie costume. Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase. While I can see the hair factor being a decision breaking point for some people, I feel it adds to the distinctiveness of the figure, and so long as one is patient, the figure can end up looking much more realistic than one with plastic hair. Black Widow looks great alongside my other Avengers figures and I look forward to completing my collection so I can set them up in the display case at my friend Randy's comic book store someday. Black Widow comes with interchangeable hands and taser wrist bands, two pistols, and a Chitauri rifle blade. The figure is currently being sold in the west through Sideshow Collectibles and at present is sold out (there's a waiting list). 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.

There are two versions of Iron Man 3: One is the international version, and the other is the Chinese version, with added scenes. This version was made especially for the People's Republic. But that certainly doesn't mean everybody there likes it. This article might contain spoilers. Keep in mind that I'm not saying that China hates Iron Man 3, as the reaction to the film itself seems just fine. Instead, I'm pointing out that many in China do not like the China-specific content added to the flick. Beijing-based Kotaku writer Eric Jou saw the film when it opened in China. The film has about four minutes of added content for the country. Before we get to the hatorade, let's review what was added for Chinese audiences and what was apparently not shot by director Shane Black. About a third of the way into the movie, Tony Stark says he will defeat the Mandarin. A doctor in China named Dr. Wu (played by Chinese movie star Wang Xueqi) sees Stark challenge the Mandarin on television. (Keep in mind that the U.S. press is apparently being told that Dr. Wu, who's barely in international version, is a complex character in the Chinese version. According to Jou, he's not. What's more, he ushers in a couple truly odd sequences in the film.) In Dr. Wu's office, you can see Tony's Iron Man on a TV screen, surrounded by Chinese children and what looks like...Dr. Wu. The good doctor then calls Tony, but J.A.R.V.I.S., the A.I. butler, answers. It's worth noting that in even in the subtitled version, there are no subtitles in this sequence; J.A.R.V.I.S. speaks in Mandarin Chinese. While speaking with J.A.R.V.I.S., Dr. Wu actually says in Chinese, "Tony doesn't have to do this alone—China can help." There's also this extra long shot of Dr. Wu awkwardly pouring a glass of Yili brand Chinese milk. But it's pure product placement. Before the movie starts, there are two China specific ads: One of them is a Chinese milk commercial that, as The Hollywood Reporter points out, asks, "What does Iron Man rely on to revitalize his energy?" (The answer is a Yili milk drink.) The second commercial is for a Chinese manufacturer of tractors and cranes. M'kay. Chinese bloggers like Buddha Kicking Rabbit are already calling the pre-movie ads the most unintentionally funny parts of the film and even recommend going early so you don't miss them. After that, there's fighting and a bunch of Iron Man kind of stuff. And then! Tony Stark decides he doesn't want to be Iron Man anymore and to have the shrapnel in his chest removed, which, I think, would actually kill him, no? But whatever, the important thing is that he decides to go to China for an operation. "No one comes to China for medical care," Jou points out. "That's just stupid." The set-up is that Dr. Wu is the only doctor able to remove the shrapnel. Then, actress Fan Bingbing, who is not in the international version, walks down a hospital hallway for about fifteen seconds and says, "He's [Tony, that is] here." Apparently, she doesn't even have a name in the movie! Dr. Wu and Fan Bingbing scrub up for the surgery, and Fan Bingbing says something like, "What if we accidentally kill him? Everyone will know it was our fault." And Dr. Wu replies that they won't fail. Then, after the successful surgery, there's a scene in which Tony Stark is hugging Rhodey (Don Cheadle) and Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). Fan Bingbing is nowhere to be seen, but there's this strange twenty-second (or so!) flashback to when Dr. Wu is talking on the phone. It's not really a flashback, Jou explains, because it didn't happen to Tony per se. Dr. Wu was talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. It's just odd and out of place—like most of the China specific content. People's Daily, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, ran an article titled: "Iron Man 3 Draws the Audience Ire: This Type of Special Chinese Version Is Pointless" (钢铁侠3引观众吐槽：这种中国特供版不要也罢). The article, which was originally published by Yangtze River Post, reads: "All the problems of the movie can be forgiven. That is, all except the parts with Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi. This China centric portion is just terrible. It's a pointless commercial with lots of plot holes." Likewise, People's Daily's own review is also quite critical of the added Chinese content. A Chinese friend of Jou's describes the added content like this: "When the Chinese show up in the movie, it's like suddenly changing the channel. It doesn't match the rest of the movie." But the criticism doesn't stop there. On news site CNHubei, the reviewer writes, "This is the first time that I feel an edited version is better than the complete version." Here, "complete version" refers to the full Chinese version. This is particularly a damning criticism, because films are often edited in China and theatergoers cannot see the full versions in cinemas. On television, too, people don't seem happy with the Chinese version. For example, on Shuo Tian Xia, a talk show on Liaoning TV, one anchor said, "It's a shame. Some audience members have said that the addition of the Chinese scenes are pointless and don't add to the movie." Her co-anchor replied, "It'd be better if they added more to the movie. A good way to get Chinese on board is just make a good movie." From the sound of it, the Chinese version of Iron Man 3 brings four minutes of film nobody really wants or needs, save the film's producers so they could presumably secure whatever funding was necessary. Shame that they weren't smarter about the deal. "It literally offends me as an American in China and as an ethnically Chinese person that Hollywood would attempt to sell this to the Chinese audience," says Jou. "It undermines Chinese people's intelligence and movie savvy." But it makes money, no? (Photos: China.org.cn/ComicBook.com/Hollywood Reporter/Collider/CRIEnglish) 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.

According to Hiroshi Ito, the top man at the Lac Cyber Security Research Institute in Japan, the JSDF's scheduled "Cyberspace Defense Force" (tentative name) will consist of 100 people and the expected increase in Japan's IT defense network is… Unfortunately, not that much. Sadly, the world of Ghost in the Shell is still largely science fiction and there is no Public Security Section 9 to take care of things. In an interview with Japan's Weekly Playboy (Note: Weekly Playboy is not a regional edition of the monthly US magazine), Ito admits that in cyber warfare, while numbers aren't everything, a meager 100 would be insufficient to protect the country. "China's cyber forces are said to be around 400,000 including militia, and the US has 20,000. South Korea currently has 500, but that number will obviously increase. North Korea's elite cyber forces consist of 1,000 to 2,000 members." Ito explains. "You can see just how few Japan's 100 really is. With these numbers, all they'd be able to do is protect the Ministry of Defense's system, not the entire country. Japan, which in the past has cultivated and image of being at the forefront of technology, is woefully unprepared on the IT defense front. Recent incidents with cyber-crime in Japan have painted a picture of just how unprepared the police are in dealing with internet related crime. Ito also points out that politics and the constant shuffling of responsibility prevents a solid foundation from being formed. Japan better catch up with the times before a real Laughing Man shows up. 自衛隊の「サイバー空間防衛隊（仮称）」は機能するのか？[週プレNEWS] 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.

Yoko Shono is up bright and early daily for morning show Mezamashi TV, which is kind of like Today for Japan. And what seems like everyday at the nearly the exact same time, she makes what seems to be the exact same face. You must see it to believe it. Note: If you are prone to seizures, you might want to sit this article out. #notkidding Noticed by 2ch, Japan's largest online forum, Shono's smile is what's called, "ahiru guchi" (アヒル口), or "duck mouth" in English. It's not uncommon for celebrities—male and female—to make pouty duck faces. No biggie! However, what makes Shono's unusual is that, give or take a few minutes, she's making nearly the exact same face. Almost. Every. Day. Don't believe me? Here are several days worth of Shono smile: Which, of course, turns into this inevitable, mind-melting GIF: On 2ch, some said they thought the smile was charming, but many wrote that they found the identical duck mouth smiles "creepy". Others wondered if morning show anchors like Shono actually practice their duck mouths. It seems rather unnatural and forced! Another wrote that Shono's uncanny ability to do a duck mouth at nearly the same time everyday wasn't creepy, but frightening. Added yet another commenter, "There's something scary about this." Besides working as an anchor, Shono once lent her voice to an episode of One Piece a few years back. She played, you guessed it, an announcer. Since this was before the duck mouth became really, really popular in Japan, One Piece was spared her pouty smile. Morning television, however, isn't. ショーパンこと生野陽子のアヒル口がキモイ [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.

Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame signed on to play the lead in the Tokyo Vice film version. Tokyo Vice is Jake Adelstein's memoirs from his crime reporter days and is definitely worth picking up. 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.

StoryBundle, the DRM-free eBook bundle service from former Gizmodo maven Jason Chen, is offering its first ever video game bundle. Curated by Gamasutra's Simon Carless, the bundle includes works by Prince Of Persia's Jordan Mechner, "Father of Games" Ralph Baer, Kill Screen Magazine and many more. Have a look at StoryBundle's official site.

GameStop's annual Expo event is set to return to Las Vegas on August 28. The event serves as a manager's meeting for the chain, and as of last year the company has also opened the show to the public.

Expo 2013 will feature 250,000 square feet of exhibitions from 80 major game developers and publishers, and offer a look at Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4.

Just like last year, general admission to the Sands Expo Center for the show costs $35. GameStop has knocked $10 off the VIP pass (which grants access to a special lounge, a swag bag, and panel discussions), which is now available for $90. GameStop is also giving away an all-expense-paid trip to one lucky PowerUp Rewards member who buys or trades something in the month of May.

Just like 2012, the show's August 28 kickoff puts it right before PAX Prime in Seattle.

These two photos, belonging to Richard Braunstein, are perfect. Just perfect. Perfect because they capture what it was like playing games in the days before giant couches and giant TV sets. Perfect because these are two grown men playing video games in 1982, smashing stereotypes. And perfect because this is a photo of a Colecovision being used in the wild, before the great home console crash of 1983, making this the photographical equivalent of the Old Testament of video gaming. Colecovision, 1982 [Flickr, via Retroist]

If for some reason you still have an original iPhone lying around, know that the revolutionary 2007 device is about to be declared obsolete. Not by your friends. By Apple. While it's long stopped receiving software updates, and barely any games will run on the thing, it's technically still been seen as an active device by Apple, able to receive technical and hardware support from Apple Stores. Come June 11, though, that will come to an end. The device, which paved the way for a revolution not just in phones but video games as well, had a good run, but boy, 2007 was a long time ago, especially in a market that' moves at breakneck speed. Original iPhone will soon reach ‘obsolete’ status in Apple Retail Stores [9to5mac]

Just when you think you've seen every kind of zombie story the world can throw at you, it throws you one more. Past Away is a hybrid comic/adventure game being developed by Christopher Middleton, where you play as a futuristic pizza delivery pilot who has to survive the zombie apocalypse. Being essentially an interactive motion comic, Middleton's art takes centre stage, and after seeing the project I liked it so much I thought I'd share it here. Past Away is currently up on Kickstarter, with Chris looking for a bit of help with things like engineering and building a website. Past Away: Choose How You'll Survive! [Kickstarter] 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!

Legendary game designer and Civilization co-creator Sid Meier is a bit like Tom Clancy these days. His name's on a whole bunch of stuff, but the level of involvement he actually has with each project, even Civilization games, varies. There appears to be little doubt how much of a hand he's had in this latest project, though. iOS air combat strategy game Sid Meier's Ace Patrol has, according to publishers 2K, been "conceived, designed and programmed by the legendary game designer himself". It appears to be a digital tribute to the excellent Wings of War tabletop game, albeit with more personality and emphasis on characters (with stuff like XP and levelling). It'll be out on iOS on May 9.