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The next episode of Game/Show, the PBS video game web series produced by Kornhaber Brown, has made its way online. This episode focuses on the emergence of Let's Play videos and tries to dissect exactly what has made them such a big deal.

Square Enix has posted the selection of wares and sundries it'll showcase during this month's Tokyo Game Show festivities, and while the list is primarily what you'd expect, there are a couple of interesting omissions.

High-profile highlights include Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy, Drag-On Dragoon 3/Drakengard 3, Thief and Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. The publisher will also be showing off a small handful of Square Enix Partners titles, such as Wolfenstein: The New Order and Psycho Break, the Japanese title for Shinji Mikami's The Evil Within.

Missing from the list, however, are Final Fantasy 15 and Kingdom Hearts 3, neither of which have been heard from since back at E3. But hey, Gardening Mama is totally on there, and that's all that matters.

Jump into some wild platforming action this week with Rayman Legends...

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The coolest feature of Pokémon Rumble U only works with the $3.99 collectible figures purchased separately from the $17.99 downloadable title, making it a mediocre game with optional improvement. Interesting idea. Read more...

3DS eShop favorite Mighty Switch Force 2 is making its way to the Wii U's digital storefront "by popular request," Wayforward Technologies announced this week on its blog. The developer estimates that it will arrive in October.Read more...

Call of Duty: Ghosts is (literally!) shaking up multiplayer thanks to the Free Fall map, which will be available to customers who pre-order the game. This new "dynamic map" adds "that sort of cinematic single-player experience to multiplayer," Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin said in the video above.

Based on a "cinematic moment" from a single-player story mission called Federation Day, the Free Fall map places players into a building which has collapsed and, in the process, become wedged. The "floor" is actually the glass side of the building, and as players fight for supremacy, that glass will give way, and the building will shudder and plummet further toward the ground.

Ghosts isn't often thought of as a horror game, but we'd hate to be anyone with a fear of heights who plays on Free Fall. Yikes.

Two years ago, I'm at PAX in Seattle. I'm trying to cover every indie game possible, but even I have my limits. I spot a game called Armillo, don't pay it much mind, but a developer ropes me in. It's a Super-Mario-Galaxy-Bomberman-Sonic kind of thing. Looks slick. I'm impressed. I post about it. Commenters like it. Then the game disappears.Read more...

Mornings suck! At one Japanese company, the software developers kept coming in after noon. But now, there looks to be a solution: Food and aerobics.Read more...

Pokémon Rumble U is available for the Wii U today, capitalizing on the Game Pad's near-field communications feature to give players the ability to import special toys directly into the game. I purchased seven of these special blind bagged toys. Let's see who we got. Read more...

One of the popular theories about why the Wii U has struggled is that it just might have the wrong name. Millions of people loved the Wii, so maybe they should have called this one the Wii 2? Here's Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime's take:Read more...

During an interview with IGN, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime defended Wii U's value proposition for consumers this Fall.

PBS is furnishing a new weekly webseries called Game/Show, produced by Kornhaber Brown and focusing specifically on video games. The first episode attempts to analyze the popularity and staying power of three gaming icons: Mario of the brothers Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and Link, wielder of the Triforce.

Will we still be playing games starring Mario in 2577? What makes these characters so endearing? Brown suggests it's the shared monomyth themes. Monomyth, a term coined by Joseph Campbell, involves a basic hero's journey where an everyman protagonist is thrust into an extraordinary situation, overcomes all odds and returns home to bestow goods and favor upon their friends and family. Yup, we have plenty of that going on in games.

Just Dance Kids 2014 will launch on October 22, Ubisoft announced today. As the fourth game in the Just Dance Kids series, this year's version will include 30 songs ranging from One Direction's "One Thing" to the Fraggle Rock TV show's opening theme song. Ubisoft provided a partial list of songs included in the game, which can be found after the break if you are morbidly curious.

The game includes an Xbox 360-exclusive "Just Create" mode, in which players use Kinect to assemble music videos using their own choreographed moves. Just Dance Kids 2014 also features a Wii U-only Dance Director mode, which allows one player to select dance moves for other players to perform. The game will launch on Wii U, Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Jennifer Powers suffered an anoxic brain injury at birth, and as a result she's practically blind, unable to "focus within a few inches of her face, even with very thick glasses". That should rule her out of playing regular video games, but nope, luckily, she's found a way to get her game on.Read more...

In a post thanking backers, Shadow of the Eternals developer Precursor Games says it has not given up on the project after failing to meet its Kickstarter campaign goal.

"It is unfortunate that we were unable to crowd-fund this project at this time, but we have not given up. We intend to pursue other avenues with the ultimate goal of having our games come to fruition," reads the latest update on the Kickstarter page.

After closing its original crowdfunding effort to better describe its vision and restructure its funding goals, Precursor relaunched the campaign for Shadow of the Eternals on July 25. The developer's second attempt at funding ultimately fell well short of its $750,000 goal, inching just above the $400K mark before ending on August 23.

Billed as a spiritual successor to the GameCube-exclusive Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Shadow of the Eternals will continue its online presence with what the latest campaign update describes as upgraded forum software. The game's forums will remain open, the developer promises.

Meanwhile, Shadow of the Eternals is still up for votes on Steam Greenlight. Joystiq has contacted Precursor to find out whether it will be removed from Valve's platform for the time being.

Ubisoft is set to enter the eSports market with "The Next Level," a livestreamed gaming competition debuting this weekend at PAX Prime in Seattle.

The Next Level features a selection of Ubisoft-published games, offering prizes ranging from scholarships to trips to upcoming events. The contest is aimed at players of all skill levels, and branches out from traditional eSports offerings with competitions for the motion-sensing dance sim Just Dance 2014 and the free-to-play RPG The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot. The PAX Prime event will also host challenges for Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, The Crew, and Rayman Legends.

"The Next Level brings all the elements of eSports style competition that make it engaging and fun to watch but tests player's skills with challenges in different games and genres opening up the playing field to anyone interested in competitive gaming," said Josh Milligan, Ubisoft's senior director of player engagement.

After PAX Prime wraps up, Ubisoft will continue The Next Level with online competitions and upcoming events at E3 and New York Comic-Con.

Hit the ground running and lead your team to glory this week with Madden NFL 25...

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Growing up with platformers on the original Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis, I didn't just have favorite games - I had favorite levels within those games. I'd grab my friends and force them to watch me play through the Quick Man stage of Mega Man 2, or the Yellow Planet of Bucky O'Hare. I was a kid, and games were all about having fun.

I'm not sure at what age I lost the impetus to label a specific portion of a game my favorite, but as I called my wife into my office to watch me replay a level of Rayman Legends, I realized that, if only for a moment, I had gotten it back. Rayman Legends isn't just the finest platformer released since its predecessor, Rayman Origins, it's also one of the few games thus far to make me happy that I have a Wii U in my entertainment center.

Legends doesn't worry too much about its nonsensical nature, and aside from making it clear that some evil Teensies are up to no good, the game doesn't bother with a coherent story or plot points. Instead, it focuses on its massive hand-drawn environments, branching pathways, and delightfully absurd enemies. In one stage you'll be pounding belligerent frogs into the ground and in the very next you'll come face to face with a dragon that swallows up the entire screen, and at no point will this seem crazy to you, for this is Rayman's world and having fun is the only thing that matters.

Capcom distributed working, golden DuckTales NES cartridges to members of the press to promote the release of DuckTales: Remastered. They still have some leftover, however, and they'd like to give them to some aspiring singers and PhotoShop artists, Capcom Unity employee Chris Antista revealed last week.

"At least one" lunchbox filled with shredded money and a DuckTales cartridge will be given away on every weekday from now until September 11, the game's digital release date for the 360. In order to win one, contestants must upload their striking renditions of the DuckTales theme song to the contest's website. If you'd rather spare yourself from that, Capcom is accepting edited artwork that incorporates DuckTales characters into existing Capcom franchises, or vice versa, at contest at capcom dot com. Antista's update also mentions future "surprises and flash giveaways" that will spring up at Capcom Unity or amongst its social media feeds.

If you'd rather not toy with your emotions, the PS3-exclusive boxed version of a digital download token for DuckTales: Remastered recently launched at retail. Digital Wii U, PS3 and PC versions are also available on the eShop, PlayStation Store and Steam. We preferred the original game, however, so why not try to give your golden The Legend of Zelda cartridge some company?

The second Kickstarter campaign for a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem has failed. Shadow of the Eternals from Precursor Games was seeking $750,000 in funds through Kickstarter, but ran out of time before reaching $400,000.

Precursor Games pulled the plug on its own campaign the first time around, due to what Denis Dyack called "noise" surrounding his involvement in the project. Dyack also admitted there were misconceptions of what Precursor promised, due to unclear messaging in the first pledge drive. Precursor Games relaunched on Kickstarter late last month.

Shadow of the Eternals was planned for Wii U, PS4 and PC on Steam. A Steam Greenlight campaign has been fighting for votes since May, though with a lack of funding for the game we may see it ultimately canceled as well.

Is that a slick gold design I see on this Wii U? Possibly part of a Zelda: Wind Waker Wii U bundle?Read more...

I was reminded of how powerful big-budget video games can be—yet how frustratingly tame they often remain—while I was playing the new Splinter Cell. This game goes somewhere I didn't expect. Spoilers ahead.Read more...

A few weeks ago, Marcus Lindblom logged onto TwitchTV. He found someone playing Earthbound, and he watched them stream for a while. Every time they smiled in the right place or laughed at the right joke, he felt a jolt of vindication. Validation. Eighteen years later, he could finally see people enjoying his work.Read more...

The Wii U remake of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker has a bunch of new tweaks and features, if previews out of Germany are to believed.Read more...

In Crysis studio Crytek's latest CryEngine tech demo, we can catch the engine's insane next-gen graphical capabilities. The best are the water effects shown in the above GIF. As the sun rises, the water dries up! That's great.Read more...

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Director's Cut will cost less than $60, Square Enix PR Manager Ryan Arbogast told Joystiq during Gamescom 2013.

"We haven't announced prices, but it won't be a full launch price," Arbogast said. "It won't be $60."

This jives with the launch prices listed on Amazon, Best Buy and Gamestop - $50 for Wii U versions and $30 for Xbox 360 and PS3. Arbogast mentioned that Director's Cut would launch this year. The remixed revamp uses dual-screen mechanics, with an updated map showing building layouts on the second screen, along with expanded level design during boss fights, a developer commentary track and fresh features such as new-game plus and grenade throwback. On Wii U, the second screen is the GamePad, while on Xbox 360 it's Smartglass and on PS4 it's the Vita.

If you're a sucker for hyper-detailed trailer analysis, then take a look at the detective work being done by the folks at ArkhamOriginsVideos on the news trailer for October's Batman: Arkham Origins game. The Dark Knight detective would be proud.Read more...

Playing a first-person shooter with a horde of strangers in a noisy trade show party is never ideal, but the fundamentals of Call of Duty: Ghosts' new multiplayer mode, Blitz, are pretty easy to grasp. Two opposing teams are dropped onto a map. There are two capture points on the map, one in each team's base. The goal is simple: Each team must capture the opposing control point while simultaneously protecting their own. The first team to 15 captures wins.

But there's a twist: The instant a player steps into an enemy control point, they are immediately teleported back to their base. You don't have to hold the control point for even a second. There's no flag to carry back to your base. The score tally just ticks up instantaneously and then you're right back in your own base, ready to defend it. Basically, Blitz is capture the flag on amphetamines, an adaptation of the classic game type for the twitchy, split-second confrontations we've come to expect from Call of Duty.

After two days of PlayStation 3 players being unable to play Disney Infinity properly without the game locking up and save game corruption, patch 1.03 has arrived to make things all better, mostly. Read more...