This year's batch includes virtual babes from games like Afro Samurai (pictured), Ride To Hell, Velvet Assassin, Saints Row 2, Domination and Rise of the Argonauts. Yes, Rise of the Argonauts. Please do run with that in the comments.

The December issue features "supermodel" Carol Alt on the cover, should you be in a great hurry to pick up a copy and can't find the date in your rush to the register.

Funcom can confirm that some of the female models in the game have had the size of their breasts changed. This is due to an unintended change in data that was introduced in an earlier patch, data which controls the so-called morph values associated with character models and the size of their respective body parts. We are working on a fix for this and your breasts should be back to normal soon.

Sometimes the world makes me very, very sad.

Botched boob job [Age of Conan Forums - Account Required - Thanks Henry!]

If you're not familiar with Gamebryo, it's the middleware solution from Emergent Game Technologies. Right. The only thing you, the reader, really needs to know is that it's pioneering self-shadowed boobs. Subtly swaying, inhumanly massive boobs. This is the kind of stuff GDC attendees are most excited about—a pair of perfectly rendered double Ds struggling to be free of a metal bra while having realistic shadows cast upon them. It's also part of the reason GDC is 90% dudes.

Yes, GameTrailers has extended cuts and high definition versions. Just don't watch at work.

I have no idea where that came from.

Ubisoft wanted to clear up the fact that while the PS3 version of SC:DA would indeed come with the female skins and new maps, the Xbox 360 version would get updated eventually in the form of downloadable content. No specific dates were given, but hopefully not too soon after the PlayStation version drops. While we wait, ponder this...are fans eagerly anticipating the new skins because they want to look at women, or because the want to fire at them with automatic weapons? Michael Fahey

Double Agent spygirl for 360 [Eurogamer]

So what separates the PS3 version from the already-released Xbox 360 and PC releases? Multiplayer boobs mostly. And two new maps. Plus, the Ubisoft Annecy Studio team put a little bit more "polish" on this one and added SIXAXIS support, making it the "ultimate version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent."

Sorry, even I tuned myself out around "two new maps." Let's see more boob shots, please. (Polygonal fun bags after the jump.)

As expected, the female agent is equipped with deadly D-cups and a Kevlar thong. Nice fan service, gentlemen. Michael McWhertor

As we've seen, some people will do anything to sell a PS3 on eBay, including pimping themselves and or their girlfriends/wives. Now the internet is clouded with a bunch of bizarre photos of people doing unmentionable things with PS3s, many of which I hope to never see again.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the photo), someone has actually gone to the trouble of rounding up a bunch of the PS3 auction photos that were being sold by scantily clad girls as spokesmodels. This bevy of beauties includes saucy wenches of all kinds using their feminine wiles to entice us in to purchasing their pricey wares. We get white trash gals, boobs, goth-dom chicks, boobs, bikini babes, boobs and even side boob!

I predict this to be the next big Nerdcore calendar. Make the jump for more PS3 hotness. Thanks, Cris! Flynn De Marco

See the full gallery here:
eBay PS3 Girls Photo Gallery [WebGirls Online NSFW]

The history of video game breasts [DESTRUCTOID]

When Crecente posted our uber-exclusive Playboy sneak peek of the "Women of Video Games" foldout, the response was one of overwhelming indifference, seasoned with just a dash of the ol' double-you tee eff: who were these women, and why should we give a shit?

I was one of the most outspoken of the naysayers, having nothing better to do with my life than send the link to all my friends so they can tell me how erudite and sarcastic I sound in my pages-long comments.

As is often the case when this troop of apes we lovingly refer to as our "readership" descends, fangs bared, onto the undeserving heads of some windmill foe, a representative of the victimized establishment will make a cameo on the Kotaku commenting stage. In this case, one "Scott", who defended his publication with restraint and good humor.

Scott also made sure to send me a copy of the Playboy in question, which makes me pause to consider my choice of a career wherein any maniac with correct postage will deliver pornography right to my door. It is both exciting and terrifying.

I have now ogled these "Women of Video Games" in their finished state, and even read the accompanying blurbs. To absorb my learned opinions on these jubblies, unhand yourself long enough to jam your filth-encrusted claw onto the jump link.

As I am currently eating fondue in a fancy caf , I hope to complete this post before being thrown out for public indecency.

I'm not sure what occurred between the sketch phase we saw and publication, but the final 3d renders of these Women of Video Games 2006 range from mediocre to outright offputting.

I make exception for the delightful Sarah Morrison, first on the left, who displays a pert but all-natural chest, dewy skin with realistic tanlines, and surprisingly adorable white panties (pantsu?). My only quibble is with her hair, which appears to have been slept on after a long hard decade of crimping irons and Aqua Net (the Eighties).

I won't go completely Queer Eye on the rest of the girls, except to say that the character modelers have been looking at too much porn with women who can't afford decent breast implants: It's poorly-placed nipples and drum-tight spheroids as far as the eye can see. The only things they left out were the stretch marks and scars.

Jessica McRae, second from the left, appears to be a RealDoll wearing a swath of rubber incontinence sheeting. She is by far the most revolting of this Pic-n-Mix.

The God of War girls, center, appear to have had more effort put into rendering their kneecaps than their Ken doll feet.

The next girl is entirely unremarkable.

Jasmine Lin, second from the right, has a more coltish physique than the others, which is welcome, but appears to have a lazy eye.

And lastly, Enrica from Splinter Cell: Double Agent, who seems to be entirely coated in some sort of lanugo. She resembles one of those velveteen deer you can purchase at flea markets. I bet she's comfy!

I always wonder, when I see a displeasing representation of a person in a magazine, how much fault belongs to the model, how much to the photographer, and how much to the magazine's in-house retouchers. These renders, with the exception of Sarah Morrison, seemed rushed, airbrushed, or both.

Now, I realize the vast majority of you are not so picky, and that my snot-nosed objections are mostly academic, but I do it all for you. Someone has to keep the bar raised.

It's probably that "make a pinup for Playboy" was not high on the list of priorities among game companies approached, especially seeing as many of them are still working on the unreleased games.

I wonder if better results would not be gleaned from a retrospective focus, as opposed to the purported "six months ahead, six months behind" timeframe that currently limits the pool. Eliza "I just wrote way too much about boobs" Gauger

Perhaps the most obnoxious element about the occasional Escapist article concerning the misogynistic subjugation of females by game devs is the nagging suspicion the reader gets that the author is only writing it in a misguided attempt to get laid. As if a few hundred words of simpering apologetics about the fact that men actually find busty polygonal women in spandex attractive is going to make female gamers the world over see the author's sensitive soul through his pale, flabby shell.

If you've ever been similarly irked by these rather dry, pompous analyses of the immorality of sex appeal in games, you'll probably like this brutal skewering on the subject by Richard Cobbett. Here's a small taste:

[Lara Croft's chest] is your introduction; your jumping off point. How you tackle this thorny issue will affect the whole tone of your cutting article. Refer to "Lara's chest", and you sound debonaire and suave, aware of the connotations, yet subtly removed from them.

FLORIAN ECKHARDT

Writing A 'Girls In Games' Article [Richard Cobbett]

Club Skill has an excellent retrospective on the role of breasts in the history of video games. The article is crammed with illustrative screenshots and amusing factoids; apparently, Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is the first game to have each breast assigned its own set of physics. Someone's been researching long into the night.

That said, the article is remarkably cleancut and quizzical, with nary a whiff of fanboyish slavering. Especially entertaining is the anecdote about Dead or Alive being named such because it was Tecmo's last ditch effort to save itself, which it did through the power of jiggle physics. And there's more bizarre stuff as well:

When talking about Mortal Kombat and breast physics, this only applies to the recent titles that in the series. This includes Deadly Alliance, Deception, and the upcoming Armageddon. The breast physics in this game seem a bit odd. Probably the best way to describe it is that it moves like very stiff jello. The games even went as far as to add bruising and bleeding. Sometimes matches would end in a pair of bloody breasts.

Boob Physics [Club Skill]