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EA has secured an exclusive license to publish and develop Star Wars games, the company announced today. EA studios DICE (Battlefield) and Visceral (Dead Space) will both make new games in the popular sci-fi franchise, and BioWare (Star Wars: The Old Republic) will "continue" to work on Star Wars games. EA will handle all games for the "core gaming audience," while Disney will continue making mobile, social, tablet, and online Star Wars games. Last month, Disney shut down LucasArts, the development studio that had been working on "core" Star Wars games like Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault. Disney said they would license out the property to external developers and publishers. We reported that EA had tried to make a deal to purchase LucasArts, which may have eventually led to this exclusive deal. “This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,” said Disney co-president John Pleasants in a statement. “Collaborating with one of the world’s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to our fans around the world.” “Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels president Frank Gibeau in a statement. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.” The EA-owned BioWare is the studio behind both the online game Star Wars: The Old Republic and what many consider to be the best Star Wars game ever, the RPG Knights of the Old Republic. No word yet on whether EA will do anything with the two games LucasArts was developing before the shutdown, the Boba Fett-helmed action-adventure Star Wars 1313 and the multiplayer shooter Star Wars: First Assault.

Each week I set aside some of my health for the sake of bringing Kotaku readers my honest, unbiased opinion about on some of the most horrible snack foods the world has to offer, and each week I get the same questions. "Don't you ever review anything healthy?" "How are you not dead yet?" Folks seem to be under the impression that I eat a cheese and oil-soaked pizza every day, chasing it with Creme Eggs and BBQ pork burgers. This is not the case at all. Well, not generally. In truth, I like eating healthy things as much as the next guy. I'll gladly polish off a box of fresh strawberries, or eat some peanut butter-filled celery sticks. In fact, I subscribe to a service that delivers boxes of healthy snacks to my door every week. The only reason I've not mentioned it before is because you can't sign up Graze.com yet. The only reason I am now is to make the people that complain about my focus on greasy, death-inducing fare feel jealous, as well they should. Here's how Graze.com works. Upon receiving an invitation code from a friend, I registered on the website. Once registered, I was able to browse through more than 90 varieties of healthy snacks, from trail mixes to shortbread dippers, assigning a preference to each one — trash, try, like and love. I enter my credit card info, select a delivery frequency, and then Graze starts sending me boxes of four snacks in the mail at regular intervals for a measly $5 shipped. This is currently the most welcome sight in my mailbox. There are two types of boxes. The Nibble Box, which pulls from the full menu; or the Light Box, which focuses on snacks between 50 and 150 calories. I'm currently getting a Nubble Box weekly — well, weekly-ish. Once the contents of the box are opened and eaten, I can head over to the Graze.com website and rate my selections, eliminating items I never want to try again, or loving the bits I'd like more often. Or I could just do that here. Super Berry Detox I cannot, for the life of me, recall if I've ever eaten a dried goji berry before. I would certainly like to eat more. My secret passion for dried fruit, especially berries, is laid bare as I eat this lovely mixture, making sounds that would not be out of place in a 70s porno film. Perfect balance of texture, tartness and sweetness. It lasted maybe five minutes. Rating: Love Tropical Daquiri More dried fruit? Why yes, thank you. Lime-infused raisins are another thing I must have more of, the unexpected tang bringing dead and withered grapes to a whole new level. The pineapple was lovely, but the green mango was all bunched together and could not be separated by my untalented hands. My mouth worked, but the effect wasn't quite the same. Less a mix, more three things scattered about a plastic tray. Rating: Like Summer Berry Compote One of the most intriguing snack categories at Graze.com is dippers. Any snack that offers me a substantial thing to submerge in a more flavorful, less-substantial thing immediately gets my attention. Dipping is normally associate with unhealthy things, like chicken wings and chips. To be able to dip and feel good about it is wonderful. A perfect combination. Rating: Love Cookies and Cream In the company of so much fruit, the Cookies and Cream mix is the odd-man out. It's a mixture of white chocolate, hazelnuts, sunflower seeks and tiny little cookies, and it doesn't leave me feeling nearly as energized and refreshed as the other selections. The cookies and white chocolate are lovely, but the nuts and seeds — often used to give mixes like this a baked taste — are simply too distracting. Rating: Trash I am not merely writing about Graze.com to make healthy eaters jealous. I'm also writing about Graze.com because it's an amazing operation that delivers healthy food that will make you feel better for eating it. Even if you've spent the whole day eating fast food crap, popping up one of these tiny plastic containers in the evening can help the day end right. It's a pity that Graze.com invitations are so limited (new members only get one), but until the team of seven folks that founded the company can get distribution centers up and running across the country it's probably for the best. As of this writing I am at least a box behind, with boxes taking approximately a week and a half from the moment they ship to arrival at my door. You might not be able to score a Graze.com membership, but there is good news — you don't have to have pre-made boxes shipped to your house in order to eat healthy. In fact, I hear going to your local farmers' market and picking up individual ingredients is good for you as well. Something about exercise. To contact the author of this post, write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @bunnyspatial.

Someone brought us a giant donut. This will end well, obviously.

Something tells me that, for a lot of you, EA was not the publisher you were looking for.

Ever since Disney shuttered former all-things-Star Wars publisher LucasArts in the wake of its purchase of Lucasfilm, we have been left wondering who would be tasked with resuming production on the world's supply of Star Wars video games. Now we know the answer.

EA has stepped up and Jedi mind-tricked Disney (or, more likely, paid handsomely) for the exclusive license for all Star Wars games in the "core games" category. This means Disney will still have the license to produce its own games in the mobile, tablet, and online gaming categories. However, if you want to make a major console, handheld, or PC game with the words "Star" and "Wars" in the title, you'd best be working for an EA studio.

It would extra help if you worked for DICE, Visceral Games, or BioWare, as EA's announcement of the deal specifically cites these studios as the ones tasked with bringing more Star Wars video games into the world. BioWare, of course, already has experience working with the Star Wars brand, producing the original Knights of the Old Republic RPG games (though only developing the first one internally), as well as the Old Republic MMO, which is perhaps most notable for costing EA an exceptional amount of money. On a possibly related note, financial terms for this deal were not disclosed.

"Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. "Now, we own the exclusive rights to those dreams," he did not add, but I imagine he thought to himself at least once.

We'll bring you more on this deal as it becomes available.

The very good solo/co-op heist game Monaco will be available for download to the Xbox 360 on Friday, May 10. It's already out on PC. Highly, highly recommended.

YouTuber and artist Jonny Lawrence put together this neat stop motion video featuring his hand battling what looks like Akuma from Street Fighter. It's like Master Hand, but in Street Fighter. And less virtual, more epidermis. (via Laughing Squid) To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

Jack The Reaper is a zany-looking SNES-style game where you play as (a weirdly cute version of) death himself. You can absorb and combine the powers of your enemies, kind of like Kirby. Your mission is to collect the souls...souls which came from the moon? In any case, there's a demo now if you'd like to try this game out, and here's the TIGSource thread with more information, screenshots and trailers.

Sure, it's cool when a talented musician makes an album paying tribute to video game music. But what about when a whole bunch of composers assemble, locking their various musical tics and tricks in place for a single grand collection? That's more or less what's happened with World 1-2, a video game tribute album featuring compositions by video-game greats like Mega Man's Manami Matsumae, Journey's Austin Wintory, and Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka. The album came out a few days ago, and guess what? It's good. In addition to the composers above, World 1-2 also features work by Ninja Gaiden composer Keiji Yamagishi (!!), Ridiculous Fishing's Eirik Suhrke, Super Hexagon's Chipzel, and many others. You can pick it up here for ten bucks; proceeds from the album will go towards helping Koopa Soundworks, the impromptu label releasing World 1-2, make more music. I emailed a bit with the album's director and executive producer, Mohammed Taher, who explained how World 1-2 came to be. He tells me that the album started out as a small EP grown from his Arabic gaming website World 1-2; the EP would feature music from Eirik Suhrke and Agent Whiskers. He then looped Metroid Metal's Stemage into providing a remixes for the album, then began to ask other musicians. Before long, He'd gotten Yamaoka on board, then tracked down Yamagishi through Facebook. Both Yamagishi and Mega Man's Manami Matsumae have never worked outside of Japan, and Taher tells me that the two famed composers will actually be collaborating on one track on Yamagishi's upcoming album. It's great to see an album like this come together, and to hear Taher's recounting of how his project attracted a bunch of willing musicians and grew into something much bigger than he'd intended. Here's hoping Koopa Soundworks keeps rolling, and gets even more ambitious with a follow-up. Give World 1-2 a listen here: <a href="http://music.gamechops.com/album/world-1-...; data-mce-href="http://music.gamechops.com/album/world-1-... 1-2 by Koopa Soundworks</a> To contact the author of this post, write to kirk@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @kirkhamilton

I'd sing along with the ballad of Silas Greaves, but I don't know the words. I need some lyric captions with one of those bouncing balls.

Remember Me is -gasp- an original game coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on June 4, a month that's usually bereft of any interesting new games to play. Why care about this one? Take a look at the video above. You'll see a third-person action game that has some standard platforming and some basic combat (with a tiny twist). Don't fret! The stars of the game appear to be its attractive future-Paris setting and its concept of remixing people's memories. I captured a little bit of all of that last night off of a preview build of the game's first full level. Publisher Capcom restricted me to about 10 minutes of video for the level and just two minutes of the unusual "memory remix" gameplay. That's too bad. The memory remix would make more sense if you could see it in full, but, for some reason they're holding that back. Maybe because there are only a handful of them in the game? If it's not clear, in a memory remix scene, you see a scene play out. What you're seeing is a character's memory, one you want to change. Then you can rewind and tweak the scene and see how it plays out with those tweaks. Making the right changes will transform the memory into something more favorable. Kotaku video editor Chris Person pointed out that it's a little like Capcom's Ghost Trick. Sure, I can see that. We'll have more on the game closer to its June 4 release. It's an interesting debut for new gaming studio Dontnod Entertainment. It's hard to say if there's enough new gameplay there, but the setting sure is a winner and the memory remixes could be good, especially if they get more complicated. I just hope we don't feel shortchanged if there aren't that many of them. But this is Capcom, so we can assume that in June of 2014 we'll get a longer, more content-rich version of the game. That's how Capcom works, right?

Here's a promising development in the ever-confusing drama surrounding Microsoft's next gaming console: a new report suggests that you will indeed be able to play Durango games offline. Today, news site Ars Technica quotes the turnabout in what they say is an e-mail sent by Microsoft officials to all internal Xbox employees. The e-mail states that the next Xbox will let people play games without connecting to the web, despite the rumors that have been swirling over the past few months that Microsoft's new console will follow in the footsteps of games like SimCity and Diablo III, requiring an Internet connection to function. "Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today's Internet," the memo reportedly says. "There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should 'just work' regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game." This language—and the memo's existence in the first place—seems to suggest either severe confusion or a policy shift at Redmond. For quite some time now, outlets like Edge, IGN, and Kotaku have been reporting rumblings that the next Xbox will require an Internet connection to function, and we've heard from multiple people who have developed or are developing games for the console, some of whom have confirmed the news, and others who haven't heard anything about it. What's also noteworthy is what the purported memo doesn't say: you may not need an Internet connection to play games, but what about when you need one to install them? (Internal Durango documents we read through earlier this year indicated that every Durango game, even those that are bought on a disc, need to be installed and only ever run off the machine's hard drive, not off the disc.) This memo comes on the heels of reported rumblings of unrest and dissent at Microsoft over the past few weeks and months. Multiple Kotaku sources have suggested that the Xbox makers are behind where they need to be, and one source told us recently that there are multiple factions at Microsoft, some of whom believe that the system should require an Internet connection to play games, and some of whom don't. We've also heard stories of studios that have gotten their Durango development kits late, or not at all. According to one source in a position to know, the recent drama involving former Microsoft creative director Adam Orth—whose controversial defense of "always on" triggered widespread Internet outrage—energized parties at Microsoft who have always been against the idea of an always-online console. This may have triggered a shift in policy at Microsoft. We reached out to the Xbox makers for comment, and we'll update should we hear back from them. On May 21, Microsoft will reveal the next Xbox. We haven't seen today's memo, but if anyone can vouch for its authenticity, let us know. To contact the author of this post, write to jason@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @jasonschreier.

Make more room for savings. Click here for the current Moneysaver roundup. Join us at 2:15pm ET for a brand new one. Click here for our Star Wars coverage from Saturday. I've been waiting for a really great external hard drive deal to highlight in the Moneysaver, and today's the day. $150 gets you 4TB of well-reviewed space with USB 3.0 for fast access in this Seagate Backup Plus. Not only is this a former Dealzmodo deal of the day, it's also the Wirecutter's favorite external hard drive. At this price point, size, feature set, and quality, this is an incredibly easy recommendation. [Amazon] Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. This is a Moneysaver One-Shot, a post focusing on a single deal, sale, or category. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm EST for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

This isn’t the first time Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro has name-checked video games in a rant meant to inflame people scared of any change to gun ownership rights. But this weekend, Pirro’s comments were made from the NRA’s bully pulpit. An address at the NRA Annual Meetings—reported on by Raw Story— Pirro said the following: How dare you compare me to a nutjob on the lunatic fringe in desperate need of medication doing nothing but watching Hollywood’s blood-soaked movies and playing the liberal Hollywood’s violent video games for days at a time... Now, these remarks channel real anger. (They're at 04:20.) But Pirro misses the mark by assuming that video games are made by the Hollywood studio system and assuming a political bent on behalf of the companies that make them. It seems like like her call-out is just another bullet point to be ticked off a list without ever really understanding the thing she attacks. [Via Raw Story] (Thanks, tipster mr_raccoon!)

We visit a land of longships and spaceships to see what kind of place makes a game like EVE Online.

Over this "May the 4th be with you" weekend, the irrepressible Star Wars: Battlefront 3 once again returned from the grave with new footage and a live stream. "New" is a malleable word here, since all of this comes from a game that was canceled in 2008 and may have leaked in one form or another over the past five years.

The first occurrence of game footage was a livestream by PtoPOnline. According to Game Informer, ptoponline.com focuses on "coverage and streaming of pre-release games, betas, and canceled projects."

There was also some alpha build footage, reportedly from a reel by developer Free Radical made in November of 2008, that was posted on Vimeo by Blue_Monkey.

The Star Wars franchise is now a licensing opportunity for developers and publishers following the closure of LucasArts.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in.]

With the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in developers' hands, the fresh ideas are flying faster than a head tumbling away from the executioner's axe. We've seen how much fun surviving can be in VR, now let's check out dying, Ned Stark-style. André Berlemont, Erkki Turmmal and Morten Brunbjerg created this guillotine simulator in two days, and it's easily the most frightening (and funny) mini-game I could imagine in a fantasy game. Just keep the karate chops off my neck, or it'll quickly escalate from decapitation simulator to real-world hand removal. Disunion - The guillotine simulator [Vimeo] To contact the author of this post, write to: gergovas@kotaku.com

In 1995, Nintendo shut the door on the original Game Boy with the miniscule Game Boy Micro, a brilliantly-engineered two-by-four-inch rectangle of compromise. It wouldn't run original Game Boy or Game Boy Color titles — just Game Boy Advance games — but boy was it pretty. Many people hated it. I just bought a new one, and I want to share it with you. Inspired by a young boy's love and the prospect of pink and sparkly buttons, I finally gave in to a craving I've been carrying around for nearly eight years. North America's Game Boy Micro was black or silver, with collectible face plates available for those craving customization. In Europe and Australia they had pink. I love pink. I needed pink. So last week I found a guy online selling an unopened pink Game Boy Micro from Europe for $150, and I exchanged currency with him. I could have purchased a used one for a great deal less, but then how would I share this special moment with you all? What will I play on this little marvel? What games will I use to strain my aging eyes beyond all reason? There will be Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, for one. I never finished the original, as my Game Boy Advance SP was stolen from my car with my copy in it, 40 hours in. I'll probably pick up a little Mario, some Sonic, the two Klonoa games, and Riveria: The Promised Land. But until I find prices for those games that appeal to me, I'll be stuck with this. Welcome back, my little friend. You may be the incredibly limited version of the Game Boy Advance that paved the way for the age of dual-screen Nintendo handhelds, but you'll always have a place in my pants. To contact the author of this post, write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter@bunnyspatial.

Double Fine embraces the music genre and then gives it the finger. Heh, I like that. Good stuff.

Earlier this month, Chinese gaming giant Tencent announced a "brand new" game that will be released later this year. The game, War of Zombies isn't exactly a new game per se, it's actually been talked about since 2010. Developed by Korean publisher Vertigo Games, WoZ has actually been around since 2010 but never released. It seems, according to the language on Vertigo Games, and Tencent's own WoZ page, that the game was developed solely for the Chinese market. It seems now that the game might finally be released for the public. Above we grabbed the Chinese promotional trailer for the game. Funny enough, the majority of the video is in English and it's "hosted" by Canadian fashion model and artist, Rick Genest. Some of you may know Genest as his stage name, Zombie Boy, others might know him from his appearance in Lady Gaga's music video for Born This Way. Throughout the 2 minute plus video, Genest touts WoZ as a "genuine American-style zombie shooting game". According to the video above, WoZ is a first person online survival horror shooter (wow that's a lot of buzz/jargon words!). Basically the player can play as a human or one of six zombies and cause chaos. Think Resident Evil meets Counter Strike meets At this time, you're probably asking, "What is a 'genuine American-style zombie shooting game?". Sadly I don't have an answer for that. I never knew "American-style Zombie shootings games" were a genre, hopefully we'll know more once the game is actually out, which is still unknown at this time. 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.

Japanese anime Attack on Titan has a powerful anime opening—it's something Kotaku has covered before. But imagine something else for a minute. Something like...Attack on Coke. This video, courtesy of tipster Sang, is called "Attack on Coke". Edited by a Korean fan of Attack on Titan, the parody sure is interesting! It features re-cut footage from a spec ad another YouTuber user uploaded last fall. In South Korea, there's at least another one of these giant food parodies: "Attack on Crucian Carp". The clip features a snack called "taiyaki" in Japanese and "carp bread" in Korean. The parody uses re-edited footage from this viral spot for taiyaki ice cream. The re-cut version is better, I think. 진격의 콜라 [하프@YouTube] Shingeki no crucian carp [ACIDzNET@YouTube Thanks, Sang] 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.

There's no doubt that China is currently going through an industrial revolution of sorts. Pretty much every city in the country is undergoing a construction boom. Taking advantage of this "boom", two teenagers in east China's Jiangsu province stole over 300 meters of construction grade electrical cable to fund their gaming habit. JsChina.com first reported that on the morning of April 27, electrical wiring and cables were stolen from a special economic zone construction site in Jiangsu province's Suqian city. The wires weren't just laying out and about for anyone to take. According to police, the wires were situated on poles about two to three-stories tall. The theft brought the construction project to a halt. After a series of investigations, police discovered that the theft was perpetrated by two young people with an affinity for online gaming. The two suspects, 16 year-old Hu and 17 year-old Li, were detained by police soon after. It's unclear how police came to the conclusion that it was Hu and Li, but the duo confessed to the crime. According to JsChina.com, Hu says he wanted some extra money to spend on online games and general websurfing. Hu met Li at an internet cafe and the two concocted a plan to steal electrical cables, cables used for telecommunications, electricity and various other infrastructure needs. The duo determined that the longer the wire the more money they would receive. Thus they decided to attack Suqian's new special economic zone. Once their target was determined, the duo set out to execute their plan. Police said what the duo did was particularly dangerous. Supposedly Hu would climb one two-story pole while Li climbed another. Once atop the poles, one of the two would cut the wire at one end and swing it over to the other. Then, after receiving the wire, one half of the duo would wrap the wire across their body and slowly climb down and move onto the next pole. The reason they didn't just cut the wires between, say, two poles, is because the wires falling down would cause a lot of noise and because the longer the wire the more money it is worth. Police said the duo risked more than just falling to their deaths; they also risked death by electrocution if the wires were "live". Unfortunately for the construction company, when police found Hu and Li, they had already sold off the wires and spent the profits on online games. While Hu and Li were correct on their assumption that electrical cables were worth money, according to the police, Hu and Li didn't exactly know how much it was worth - they completely undersold their loot. [为筹钱上网打游戏 两少年爬高塔吊盗窃电缆] [JSChina.com via People's Daily] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

For decades, Osaka-based collectible maker Kaiyodo has been churning out plastic statues and figurines. At a new "Figure World" exhibition, Kaiyodo marks its 30th anniversary of making figurines and is putting a whole slew of plastic on display in Shibuya. At the exhibit, which nearing its end, there are Japanese and Western characters, with the common bond being that Kaiyodo produced out small figurines of them all. Beside the huge statues, one of the coolest things at the exhibit is the little window box dioramas. Have a look (photos courtesy of Kotaku Japan and Japanese blogger Figutaku.) The exhibit is located in Shibuya's Tokyu Department Store and ends tomorrow. 海洋堂フィギュアワールド in 東急東横 [ふぃぎゅたく] フィギュアの国、日本を支えた30年。[Kotaku Japan] 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.

Last year, Kotaku featured a Japanese "latte artist" named Kazuki Yamamoto. Taking inspiration from games and anime, he became famous for drawing characters in steamed milk. And now, he's doing that in 3D. Forget drawing flowers and leaves! What makes Yamamoto's milky coffee creations so much fun is how aware of geek culture they are. I mean, how many latte artists do depictions of Anonymous' Kim Jong-un parody? When Kotaku previously showcased Yamamoto's work, we focused on his 2D latte art (such as above). The latte artist has also produced some truly eye-popping—and adorable—three dimensional cups of java. Below, you can see more of Yamamoto's 3D art. george_10g [フォト増] じょーじ [Twitter via DDN] 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.

Chasm, that ambitious retro-styled PC Metroidvania we've mentioned a while back, has met its Kickstarter goal with five days to go. Well done!

Amidst all the rubbish Sonic games and Hatsune Miku, it's easy to forget that Sega was, once, cool. Very cool. It's something artist Oggy hasn't forgotten, with this tribute to the company's vehicular heyday that I wish my wife would let me paint all over our living room wall. レトロゲーム [PIXIV, via VGJunk]

Tom Francis, by day a writer at PC Gamer, is by night the main man behind Gunpoint, an upcoming stealth game for the PC which I've been playing for the last few days (and looking forward to for the last few months). Gunpoint is, like last year's Mark of the Ninja, less of a blockbuster adventure and more of a sneaky sandbox, with the potential for multiple replays to get that "perfect" run. Stripped to a 2D vantage point, the game isn't just about crawling around on walls avoiding cameras and guards. Instead, you're given the power to rewire the buildings each mission takes place in. If anything in the building draws electricity - be it a lightswitch, light fitting, door, trapdoor, security camera or access panel - its purpose and end function can be modified by the player. Lightswitches can become door keys. Security cameras become a means to activate booby traps. This turns your sneaking into something of a puzzle game, as you're not only watching guard patrols and making sure you're out of sight, but that you're constantly checking the building to see how you can best make use of the technology available. And you have to use it. Combat in Gunpoint is limited; you can pounce on lightly-armed guards and knock them out, but if you're spotted at all, you'll be fired upon, and one shot will kill you. Which sounds rough, but in a neat touch the game is constantly saving your progress, to the point where upon death you can reload from one second ago, four seconds, six seconds, etc. It's a fantastic way to keep the game tough, but also encourage experimentation without forcing you to backtrack and repeat stuff. I've played my way through a few of the missions in a preview build for the game, and have loved it. The art style keeps things nice and clean, and the noir detective soundtrack is great. I can't wait to try out the finished version, which shouldn't be too far off, especially since it looks like it'll be shipping with a full mission editing suite; it'll be awesome seeing what people can come up with once they get their heads around the rewiring systems. Gunpoint [Site]

The X-Wing Miniatures tabletop game, which I like very much, has a new line of tiny little spacecraft on the way. Joining the eight units already available (Xwing, A-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Advanced, Slave One & the Falcon) are four new ships. They are the B-Wing, Lambda-Class Shuttle, TIE Bomber and HWK-290. If the last one doesn't ring any bells, it's the ship first seen when it was used by Kyle Katarn in the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series. X-Wing: FFG Unveils Wave 3 Ships [Bell of Lost Souls] FFG Star Wars Game Experience 2013 [Matt Baxter]

Here's a treat. Popular YouTube gamer The Angry Video Game Nerd managed to sit down and play games with the one and only Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma and the director of classics like Toxic Avengers. The game he played? The various versions of Toxic Avengers. Which, well, yeah. Weren't great. Toxic Crusaders - Angry Video Game Nerd [YouTube, via Topless Robot]

This isn't the first time we've seen the wettest battle from the Lord of the Rings trilogy recreated in LEGO, but it's easily the most impressive, at least in terms of scale. I don't know how he got so many minifigs to pad out the scene, and I don't want to know. All I know is, if you want to pay homage to the battle with LEGO, you're off to a good start packing it full of meat for the grinder. Shame he doesn't have a better camera, but you can easily get the idea. Lord of the Rings, Helm's Deep [GOEL KIM, via Brothers Brick]

This is Aussie Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Bloke. For those living outside the antipodes, think of it as anthropology meets popular culture, because just about every reference they drop in this thing is perfect. Aussie Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Bloke [YouTube]