Our very own Michael McWhertor says it would be cheaper to join the military, but he surely knows that time = money. Some of us don't have spare hours for boot camp, Mike. We've got lawns to mow. Or something.

Here's Complex's breakdown of Soap's gear:

1. G-STAR NEW COLORADO HOODED PARKA $335
2. DQM SPECKLED YARN BEANIE $34
3. DAKINE CROSSFIRE GLOVE $70
4. BURTON CARGO PANT $150
5. ANON HAWKEYE GOGGLE $125
6. NIXON DELTA II SS/PU $350
7. OAKLEY TACTICAL BOOT $130

Head over to the full article for breakdowns of other MW2 outfits, along with links that will allow you to purchase the items.

How To Dress Like You're In "Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" [Complex]

But how about you gamer? Are you metal? I'm sure you say you are, but are you really metal? Like as metal as the German guy who stopped me at the train station in Cologne to hug me and shout "Fucking Metal" in my face?

If you are, then maybe you're one of the 40 people who will be lucky enough to win a Mishka Brutal Legend T-shirt.

Here's the deal. All you have to do is drop in a photo of yourself in pure metal pose, proving your metalocitiy, in the comments to this thread. We''ll randomly select among the metal posers... ha.... 40 winners.

The contest is open to anyone in the world... who loves metal. No promise on which of the two designs you'll land if you win or what size you'll get. But we'll try our best.

Now, get to the posing and posting. Submit your picture by Dec. 2 and we'll announce the winners on Dec. 4.

The Mishka NYC × Brütal Legend collaboration not only gives metalheads an opportunity to proudly display their love of all things Tim Schafer on their torsos, it draws upon real thrash and metal credibility.

The above "Headbanger" tee features the gory result of Ironheade's headbanging foot soldiers thrashing concert-going wimps in a design crafted by artist James Callahan, known for his work with bands like Municipal Waste. The second, featuring a Brütal Legend Zaulia riding a Fire Beast, is all 70s metal fantasy, sex and hellfire, courtesy of Daniel Mumford, known for his work with Black Dahlia Murder.

Keep watch for opportunities—right here on Kotaku, for example—to get your hands on these tees. They won't be for sale, folks, so watch this space and the official Brutal Legend Twitter for updates.

Right now, however, if you've not already invested in a copy of Brutal Legend, Mishka's Bloglin is giving away a quartet of copies, two for the PlayStation 3, two for the Xbox 360. We're not sure if Mishka's inbox is ready for it, but if you e-mail brutal@mishkanyc.com, with either Xbox or PS3 in the subject line, you may score a copy by November 20th. Good luck!

And I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time.

Looking back, the timing of founding Meat Bun, our video game-themed t-shirt line, makes sense. It started in Tokyo, following an afternoon pounding the pavement in Harajuku, a fashionable slice of Tokyo nestled between Shinjuku and Shibuya. The area attracts the fashion conscious, from outlandish cosplayers to street fashion freaks.

Harajuku is also home to one of our biggest influences, Beams T, a Japanese label that somehow manages to make the stereotypically uncool—including video games, anime and manga—cool. It was after shopping at Beams T, where I purchased an Every Extend Extra t-shirt, lamenting that we'd missed out the label's Dragon Quest anniversary line of tees and bemoaning the fact that shirts from The King of Games were hard to get in the U.S. that the idea of making our own clothes, video game-themed ones, started to gel.

It was just days before the Tokyo Game Show. Wedged between the t-shirt shopping and the promise of playing dozens of unreleased video games, the whole thing seemed like a good idea.

Our goal? To tap into the hard to define culture of video games, a medium which we had been passionate about for decades, and create something that was better than what we were being offered. And we weren't the only ones with that idea. Similarly passionate video game fans, those raised on 8- and 16-bit games were doing the same thing, like the people behind Panic, J!NX, Attract Mode, Starmen.net and its spin-off Fangamer and many others.

So, after foolishly deciding on the name Meat Bun—inspired by a life-giving pick up from Capcom's unpopular side-scrolling arcade beat 'em up Warriors of Fate—we set off to clothe gamers.

My partner in clothing is Scott Spatola, a lifelong gamer who originally introduced himself to me after learning that I'd brought a SNES and a copy of Street Fighter II to college, against my parents wishes. The aforementioned arm-twister, Scott has always been the motivator, a rabid fan of Spy Hunter, Ninja Warriors and Darkstalkers, and the other half of this full-time-feeling side project dubbed Meat Bun.

It always helps to have a friend like Scott, one who's organized enough to undertake the business side of the business—setting up the bank accounts, applying for federal tax IDs, legally incorporating the company. There are just shy of a million little things that crop up in the process of starting to run one's own business, from the minor—like running out of envelopes with 200 orders waiting to be fulfilled—to scary legal threats. What seems like a fun little lark isn't often as easy as originally planned.

"I always said that if anyone ever asked, I'd tell them that starting your own business is F-ing hard, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise," says Sean "Jinx" Gailey, the creative overlord at clothier and accessory maker J!NX. "Real blood, sweat and tears (also real) have gone into this business."

But J!NX has turned those hard-lost fluids into a successful brand and, perhaps more importantly, a full-time gig for its founders.

"Frankly, the biggest challenge was getting over the 'hump,' making that transition from working your day job to solely working on your own business," Gailey says. "Anyone who's working on their own business can relate to that. We didn't take a paycheck from J!NX for 5 years of business, during the 'this is our side business' days. That was rough."

J!NX has been in business since 1999, when Gailey started the company "as a three page website with six designs" running the label from his bedroom. We met Gailey at last year's Spike TV Video Game Awards, bending his ear about the J!NX empire, which, while different from what we had set out to do with Meat Bun, reflected a similar passion for video games and general nerdiness, coated with a cooler shell.

"I wanted to make clothing inspired by our lifestyle, one of video games, pen and paper gaming, geek culture, giant robots, comics and dragons," Gailey says of the origins of J!NX. The clothing company has grown from a bedroom doubling as headquarters to an operation employing 21 people, occupying 18,000 square feet of office and warehouse space and making merchandise for hugely popular games like World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, StarCraft, Aion and EVE Online.

And while not quite understated, for the most part, what J!NX does is offer something to the fan of, say, World of Warcraft that's designed with more of a wink and a nod.

From the barely referential designs from Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy t-shirt maker Panic to the Earthbound obsessed crew at Fangamer—borne of Starmen.net—the subtle approach appears to be a common tactic. For our own part, ultra vague references to The House of the Dead, Ikaruga and Spy Hunter, seemed sometimes lost on the Meat Bun customer.

Reid Young of Fangamer says his company draws much of its inspiration from the Super Nintendo's role-playing game heyday for its similarly obscure designs.

"EarthBound and other SNES RPG's have definitely been our main inspiration," Young says, a fact reflected in the clothing label's EarthBound-heavy catalog. "1996 was pretty much the best summer ever — Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Super Mario RPG from morning to midnight. It's fun to relive those days and, hopefully, inspire new and old fans to do the same."

While the Fangamer store—"Something we hoped would bring in enough money to keep the lights on" over at Fangamer's community-driven side—is now the "main business focus," according to Young, employing three full-time Starmen.net veterans, running a clothing and merchandise label exceeded the EarthBound fan's expectations.

"I never anticipated the amount of work which goes into a single piece of merchandise," says Young. "It sounds easy to slap a design on a shirt, but the amount of time, money, and care that goes into the process is staggering."

Fan response, Young says, makes the grind of shipping thousands of Mother 3-inspired handbooks and t-shirts all worth it.

"Releasing a product, going to sleep, and waking up to find that everybody is as pumped about it as I am. It brings a little tear to my eye," he says.

That may be the most exhilarating part of trying to appeal to a gamer's fashion sense, finding something that people will buy and wear in public, unafraid to wear their love of video games on their sleeve, sometimes literally.

One person who's taking a different approach to the sometimes hazy cloud of "culture" that surrounds video games is Adam Robezzoli, founder of "video game culture shop" Attract Mode. It's an endeavor four years in the planning, one that includes fashion, art, print magazines and more.

Attract Mode's online store opened earlier this year, an effort that allows Robezzoli to "curate and produce unique art/goods related to video games, but also a way to fund pet projects like the artxgame collabs and the DATA BEEZ chip music concert." It also sells t-shirts, giving gamers more wearable options.

The online store offers a broader set of merchandise, however, from video game inspired t-shirts to zines from writer Matt "Fort90" Hawkins to Pac-Man oven mitts to CDs from chiptunes superstars YMCK, Anamanaguchi, Covox, et al.

Personally, when we started doing our own thing with Meat Bun, it was simply an extension of our gaming-related lives, much like what the founders of J!NX, Fangamer, Attract Mode and others have done—turned their passions into something tangible. And, yes, it's sometimes F-ing hard. But you have to wear something, right?

Like most things Fangamer made—the Mother 3 Handbook, for example, or their sundry t-shirts—this Earthbound-ish get up comes with any number of unique pins, adding additional flair to your Ness cosplaying. There are even ultra-rare pack ins that might net the lucky Earthbound/Mother enthusiast a special yo-yo or badge. On top of that, Fangamer is offering your choice of hat embroidery, further making the combo pack uniquely yours.

There are men and women's sizes of the Awesomeness Combo Pack, both priced at $54. (But there does appear to be some discrepancy about the pre-Halloween availability of the thing. The site says you can rush order a pack as late as Tuesday night, but the rush shipping option appears to be unavailable. Act accordingly!)

Awesomeness Combo Pack [Fan Gamer]

We are proud to launch this new era of virtual fashion scrutiny with a check of what the beautiful virtual people of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves are wearing during their new and critically-acclaimed PlayStation 3 adventure.

Assisting Kotaku this time are:

-Amy Hennig, Creative Director of Uncharted 2 development studio Naughty Dog. Her studio also provided the many reference photos included here.

-Heather and Jessica from fashion blog Go Fug Yourself, who asked us to refer to them as "The Fug Girls." Their blog is best at cracking jokes on poorly dressed celebrities. They were a shade kinder here. They have not played Uncharted 2 yet.

-Latoya Peterson, editrix of Racialicious, and a contributor to our women-oriented sister blog Jezebel. She has not played Uncharted 2 yet.

Let's dive in...

Nathan Drake

Amy Hennig : Drake is not a man concerned with fashion. He wears what's comfortable and practical, regardless how stained and well-worn those items of clothing may be. His only indulgences are his belt buckles, and the ring he wears on a cord around his neck – a ring supposedly passed down from his ancestor, Sir Francis Drake.

The Fug Girls: Drake's basic outfit has all the qualities a guy could need: It's comfortable, relaxed, breathable, suggests he might be super ripped, and prevents holster-chafing. Our quibble is with the accessory hanging from his belt — surely any adventurer worth his stubble knows that if you might need to break into a run, you shouldn't dangle a dagger anywhere within stabbing distance of your thigh.

Latoya Peterson: Excellent outfit for the circumstances. Casual but sturdy, easily adaptable for a variety of situations.

Naughty Dog Reference: Converse Jack Purcell shoes

Naughty Dog Reference: Henley shirt.

Naughty Dog Reference: Diesel Jeans

Naughty Dog Reference: Belt Buckle

Naughty Dog Reference: Watch

Drake In The Cold

The Fug Girls: If it's cold enough for Drake's enormous fur-trimmed sleeves — he looks like a Mongol hunter about to gnaw on an enormous leg of mutton — then why isn't Drake's bare neck totally freezing? Are scarves insufficiently manly? And would it kill an adventurer to wash his pants every once in a while?

Latoya Peterson: The shearling coat for winter weather is a nice touch.

Chloe Frazer

Amy Hennig : We wanted Chloe's outfits to be practical but sexy, and to display a sense of style. Rather than put her in shapeless cargo pants and standard-issue boots, she wears form-fitting cargos that accentuate her figure, and high boots that have a retro-designer flair. Chloe doesn't want to look too "put-together," but she's got a good body, and she knows it.

The Fug Girls: What else would you wear to scramble around the Himalayas looking for treasure than a belly shirt and a bunch of grungy accessories that might get caught on a tree and accidentally garrote you? That being said, we have to congratulate Chloe for wearing appropriately practical cargo pants. They're still tight enough to be sexy, but she also has all those pockets – so convenient for the adventurer on the go.

Latoya Peterson: Overall, the look works. It's utilitarian, and it's clear this character is out to handle her business. The shrunken tees are a bit much though - not much protection against weather or assault. They are perfect layering pieces though, so this could be easily rectified with a long sleeve kevlar undershirt.

Chloe In Red

The Fug Girls: Correct us if we're wrong, but isn't this the same shirt Chloe was wearing earlier, just in a different color? Is she like the Albert Einstein of treasure-hunters, with a closet full of multiple examples of the exact same outfit? Regardless: Better a t-shirt than a bra top.

Naughty Dog Reference: Cargo Pants

Naughty Dog Reference: Boots

Naughty Dog Reference: Holster

Elena Fisher

Amy Hennig : Like Drake, Elena tends to wear what's practical in her line of work as an investigative journalist – jeans, sturdy boots, and a blouse that will look all right on camera. In a field dominated by men, she still tries to maintain some femininity in her look, but it's hard when you're spattered with mud half the time. Her belt-mounted sidearm reflects the danger inherent in her job.

The Fug Girls: Presumably, it's no surprise to Elena that she enjoys the occasional gritty quest, so while this shirt is cute, perhaps she should shop for something more practical and less tailored — you know, so she looks like a thrill-seeker rather than a helpless disaster-movie damsel who is running away from the lava that just wiped out her law office. (Note from Kotaku: Blame us for not notifying our fashion experts that Elena is a reporter as well as an adventurer/videographer.)

Latoya Peterson: This outfit is not working for me. An anthropologist doing light field work would wear this outfit. But an adventurer? Not so sure, plus the nude colors are washing her out. Military style is back in fashion, so I would swap out the easily destroyed button up with a sturdier blazer/jacket that can be matched with her existing camisole or a scoopneck top.

Naughty Dog Reference: Shirt

Naughty Dog Reference: Shoes

Harry Flynn

Amy Hennig: Flynn's fashion is meant to betray a little more vanity than Drake's more down-to-earth clothing. Flynn's outfit, while basic, is all designer clothing – expensive jeans, designer boots, and a trendy t-shirt and necklace. Even his choice of a gunslinger-style holster is a conscious fashion choice. The differences in their clothing is meant to set up a subtle distinction between Flynn and Drake from the outset.

The Fug Girls: Nothing says, "roguish" like black clothes, leather gloves, man-jewelry, multiple weapons and a pompadour so aggressively retro that we wouldn't be surprised to hear it was inspired by the many violent downward spirals of Dylan McKay. Flynn might as well just wear a tee shirt that reads, "I'm troubled, and hot. Love me."

Latoya Peterson: Sorry, this look is completely over. The bad boy stereotype is screaming off the page. "Look at me! I'm the one in black! The unpredictable one! Do my one-liners make me look cool?" Lighten up on the black, lose the accessories and use a piece like Tom Ford's Herringbone Trench to add some drama and mystery. Plus, it's the perfect place to keep both those guns, and keep the chill off.

Naughty Dog Reference: Shirt

Naughty Dog Reference: Necklace

Victor Sullivan

Amy Hennig, Creative Director, Naughty Dog: Sully is a throwback to early action-adventure heroes like Errol Flynn and Clark Gable, with a healthy dose of Ernest Hemingway thrown in. We wanted his outfit to reflect this heritage – thus the embroidered guayabera shirt, khakis, old-school boots, and ever-present cigar. His preference for a long-barreled Colt Python revolver completes the picture.

(Note From Kotaku: Victor Sullivan was spared the scrutiny of our fashion experts. You're a lucky man, Sully! )

Naughty Dog Reference: Shirt

Naughty Dog Reference: Dockers Pants

Every year there are two shows at the Tokyo Game Show: the games that are played and the clothes that are worn. While cosplayers have the market cornered on outrageous spectacle, it's the booth companions that often provide the most revealing look into a company's corporate culture.

"The traditional booth companion uniform — you know, the short skirts, the high heels, the vinyl — are designed to appeal to men," says Xbox Japan's Yuichiro Aoki. "Our uniforms are designed to appeal to women." That in turn, Aoki believes, will make the booth companions feel more comfortable. "We didn't want to force the girls to look sexy. We wanted their appeal to come out naturally. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I think that's when women look their most beautiful."

Booth uniforms tend to run on cycles for some companies, while others change it every year. Last year, Japanese newspapers reported that Microsoft would be revealing a new booth companion uniform. While the company has had varying degrees of success, Microsoft has been picked for best booth companion uniform by game magazine Famitsu year after year after year at TGS. Famitsu quoted one attendee as saying, "Microsoft's outfits didn't seem to reveal much at first, but look again, and..."

In uniform-crazy Japan, there was considerable buzz about what the new Microsoft 2008 uniform would look like. Xbox Japan marketing exec Jyoji Sakaguchi said, "Every year, our booth companion outfits get an extremely favorable reception, and they are very popular among women. This year, we're going to finally introduce a new design for the outfits. During the booth companion fitting, things like 'Wow, I want to wear this outside work!' were overheard about the cool costume."

The design process began in early fall, and a hand-made prototype was created before the show. After it was approved, Japanese craftspeople produced the finished product. This year, Microsoft once again rolled out last year's model.

Uniforms dominate the Japanese landscape. It's not only cops, firefighters and train station employees who wear standardized outfits, but elevator operators, office ladies and taxi drivers. While researching the book I am writing on Japanese schoolgirls, it's been surprising to see how the design of uniforms often dictate to young women where they want to go to junior high or high school — often as much or more than academic reputation!

"Often when booth companions from other companies are on their break, they say that they think the Xbox booth companion outfits are so cute," explains Aoki. A lot of the girls who apply to be booth companions say they did so because they like the uniform." Microsoft isn;t trying to lure other companies' booth companions. It's not like that at all.

At 32-years-old, Aoki is Microsoft's creative director for the Tokyo Game Show. Fashionably dressed in a black sweater, blue button-up and camo pants, he's got a clip board in his hand, ear piece in his ear. The first days are always the most nerve racking, he says. Besides handling the Xbox 360 TV and print ads in Japan, Aoki overseas the TGS booth lay-out, any graphic design work that needs doing as well as conceptualizing the look of the booth companions. "I was heavily involved in designing the uniforms," he says. "We wanted it to be modern and something that the girls could actually wear outside."

And the girls do want to wear it outside. "But Aoki-san won't give me a uniform to take home!" bubbles 23-year-old booth companion Megumi. "This uniform is so cute, and it's comfortable — it's actually wearable." This isn't the first time Megumi has worn the Xbox Japan TGS outfit — she was one of 10 or so booth companions involved in the design process, offering opinions on what kind of clothes she would want to wear. While other companies dictate TGS wear to companions from on high, Xbox Japan involved them from the start. A closer look shows how playful the uniform is with visual gags like "Information ?" written on the seat of the uniform's shorts.

Design-wise, Xbox Japan tried to message the freedom and customization that the Xbox 360 platform gives players. So while users can swap out hard drives or use different colored controllers, the booth companions can do likewise: Belts come in green and silver, and there are hats for companions who want to wear them. "I think the hats are so adorable," gushes Megumi. There are metal star pins that the girls can put where they like. "It's easier to stand in cowboy boots than in high heels all day," adds Megumi. The ability to swap out accessories gives the uniforms customized, while keeping a standardized look. Megumi's favorite thing about the uniform is that, around her neck, she wears an Xbox LIVE-type gamer card with her name and photo on it. "I think it's really cool," she says. "It personalizes the experience, for me."

Out of the approximately 120 girls that auditioned in late summer, only 40 or so made the grade. Those that did attended a lecture on manners to ensure they interact with customers in a polite and respectful fashion. Decorum and manners play a large part in Japanese culture — ditto for the Tokyo Game Show. As part of their training, the companions also took a five hour seminar about the Xbox brand and Xbox LIVE. To help facilitate the experience, the booth companions were broken down into groups lead by core staff. So someone like Megumi who has experience working with Xbox Japan would oversee and help train new girls. At the end of the show each day, all the girls lined up in front of the booth, posed for photos and then bowed in unison.

"We don't have a predetermined idea of what kind of girls we want," says Aoki. Uniforms run small, medium and large — but even then, it's possible for the girls to customize the outfit. Straps on the back of the suit make it possible for quick and easily tailoring: tighten the straps for those girls who want a tighter fit and loosen them for girls who need more room. The shorts can be rolled up and buttoned in place for those who want their legs to appear longer and can be rolled down to minimize unflattering thighs. Because the uniform is open in the chest, revealing a bikini-type top, it's also possible to accessorize with a stole-type scarf for those companions hesitant to walk around with their shirt open all day long. Xbox Japan and its design team have thought of everything that can make the companions more comfortable as they do their job.

"Because the girls are in shorts and wearing stockings," says Aoki, "they also don't have to worrying about the kinds of things girls in mini-skirts have to." Meaning? "They don't have to worry about people seeing their underpants and can just relax. Our goal is to make sure the girls feel comfortable with the uniforms and comfortable with the Xbox 360," Aoki says, "because honestly, that will motivate them during the show."

Now, I get a lot of swag t-shirts from events or mailed to me by publishers. I don't want to complain about free stuff, because 1) it goes to Brian Crecente's annual charity Funde Razor event and 2) these shirts obviously aren't made for women, what with the XXL label most of them carry.

However I was shocked, simply shocked to see that this XXL shirt... is actually a medium. Made by Marc Ecko. What a rub! Finally a swag shirt made buy a clothing designer who knows what he's doing, which in theory should fit me, and it turns out to be cut in a style where medium = XXL.

Face it, ladies. We just can't win with swag shirts. Although, I should tell you when I learned from that Clone Wars junket: the voice of Ahsoka, Ashley Eckstein, is working on an upcoming fashion line "for the female sci-fi fan."

Here's hoping a medium is a medium when that happens.

We tracked down gamer-made gamer apparel from all across the Internet, some with game publisher licenses and some without. Between our price listings and some choice advice from a few specialists, you'll pwn gamer fashion this fall.

Here's what our experts on gamer fashion have to say...

Meg Horner, private seller, aka sunshineravioli:
"I shoot for a pretty chill look— if you're not looking closely, they just look like any other knit hat. It's like wearing a secret on your head that only other gamers will understand."

Chris Birch, founder, Joystick Junkies:
"The main thing is our clothing has to be commercial, it's got to sell to people who want really cool t-shirts whether they ‘get it' or not, whether they recognize the inspiration for the design or not. The bonus is if you see one of our t-shirts and think ‘oh my god that's the quote from my favorite game'."

Tashica Taylor, private seller, aka urbanprincess:
"I try to make thinks that are fun and things I think people will love! If I won't wear it I won't make it and try to sell it to someone."

Note: The gallery is sorted by game, so some "saves" will still be pricey. Sorry, Atari fans!

Those of us on this side of the pond too poor to afford Joystick Junkies' shirts and jackets might know the label's work from their Saints Row 2 real life and in-game apparel (on the DLC pack). The designer got their start in 2000 and have been scooping up official licensed art for their collection ever since.

Here are the details on the geek chic model competition, which officially kicks off tomorrow:

Entrants have to send in their ‘gamer geek chic' looks to the E4 website by 17 September 2009 at 10am – the winning pictures will be those that are funny or interesting and should show evidence of a passion for gaming. Anyone from babes to bikers can enter - it's not about model looks.

First prize is the chance to feature in a fashion shoot organised by fashion label Joystick Junkies, plus the winner's choice of clothes to keep from their catalogue (up to the value of £100). Three runners up also get to select £100 worth of Joystick Junkies clothing each.

Might be worth it if you live in the UK and have a fetish for gamer apparel.

We dress in mere costumes when we control characters in our Xbox 360s. Michael Connell believes it's time for us to wear fashion — some of which came from poorer times.

Connell is the Microsoft-contracted designer behind two original fashion lines, offered, for pay, as part of the new Xbox 360 system update that goes live today. The freelance creative director whose professional experience includes modeling, designing Barbie-branded fashion and a stint as the design director of the Cranium line of games, has crafted clothing for the bodies of virtual men and women, to be worn by Xbox 360 Avatars.

Through Connell and Microsoft, gamers can today buy 1930s-era cuffed trousers ($1) or a pair of Steampunk metal goggles ($1) to adorn the virtual person who represents them on their Xbox 360 — and who appears on their Xbox Live friends lists.

The fashion offering might vex those gamers who don't see the sense of spending a dollar on a virtual pair of pants but Connell sees the introduction of the new lines as a promotion for what he fundamentally values about fashion: a way for us to say something about ourselves.

"The fashions [in video games] have mostly been driven by context," he told Kotaku in a phone interview to discuss the lines. "The context for this game is a war or a sci-fi war or what have you, so let's build fantasy characters. In other games it's based on World War II. So these are a set of characters and they're thought of as movie characters. It's more costume-based. But when you really start thinking about fashion ... my personal feeling about fashion is that it's always about expression."

It's self-expression that Connell hopes his work can further enable for Xbox gamers. "Once you see enough avatars, they kind of start to feel the same," he said, recalling the initial wave of Xbox Avatar fashion that has been available for the past nine months, while he's been designing the new lines. "The generic collection that we have out there currently doesn't really offer any individuality. Certainly it's a basics collection. but it's generic in the worst sense."

Today launches Connell's wearable antidote. In the new Avatar store on online-connected 360s, buried behind banners advertising BioShock and Halo fashions for Avatars and tucked behind new pages that sell Adidas and Quiksilver Avatar clothes, are the first of Connell's brand-free lines: Steampunk and the Depression-inspired Recessionista.

Steampunk was a no-brainer, part of an attempt to offer some clothes to the folks Connell described as "thought leaders." It's a big trend, with people melding styles from the 1800s with a fanciful addition of future technology. "We felt the community was so active that paying homage to this trend was pretty much a natural," Connell said.

Recessionista was a bigger leap, one that had to clear more skepticism in Microsoft before getting full support. That line from Connell is based on working-class clothing from the United States' worst economic slump in its history. It is a relevant inspiration, of course, because of the world's current economic woes. It may also be one of the first acknowledgments in video games of the biggest real-world news story of the past two years in video games, arriving only now in August 2009.

"I was thinking about making a statement, if you will, that even though this time of global recession, everything isn't bad." Connell said. "And in the 30s, in a time that was really bad, much worse than it is today, it wasn't all bad. There was fashion that was quite interesting. And this fashion wasn't the couture that was happening at the time. It was — what I'm trying to do — is more of a work fashion. [I hope] to kind of show that there are good things and we've been there and we'll get out. Clearly these are subliminal messages, but this is what I was inspired by. If you design a collection I think the most important thing is there needs to be heart and soul and direction."

On the Xbox 360, fashions are divided for male avatars and female avatars. The system doesn't allow for cross-dressing of gendered items. Other restrictions of color palette and memory limitations curtail the wildest fashions Connell could conceive. He can't adjust for fit, eliminating the ability to distinguish between, say, baggy pants and tight jeans. But within these strictures that Connell still sees opportunity: "I'm trying to do is encourage people to take risks and play with expressions. And play with where their boundaries are with fashion. Because right now the real expression that we have in this ecosystem is visual."

Connell doesn't set prices. But he's hopeful that people will find worth in dressing in some of the clothes he has crafted. The fact that he helped stitch some of the first paid hats and shirts on the Xbox 360 motivated him, he said, to make things that were top-flight, an aesthetic goal, not a commercial one. "Nobody has been playing with the idea that this is world domination through avatar apparel and making huge money," he said. "If we don't charge and it's free, how can we re-invest? There's significant time and money and capital that's being spent to actually bring these to market "

More fashion lines from Connell are coming. And he's paying attention to the response. "We're hoping we're going to get feedback and that's going to help us course-correct, improve and push the envelope on what it means to give expression through avatars."

Who thinks about what their characters wear when they play or browse an Xbox 360 dashboard? Wear what you will. Connell hopes it will mean something.

Finally, after numerous requests, we've added roomier extra extra large sizes, so towering Fahey-proportioned types with a penchant for sporting their video game fandom on their sleeves can feel more comfortable. That includes the new stuff, like the Famicom-colored Nintendo Four shout out and the newer, velvetier Agro Polo homage.

Attendees of the Kotaku E3 2009 party got a sneak peek at this stuff months ago, but our new stuff is now available to the general public at the online store. Have at it!

Meat Bun Online Store [Meat Bun]

It's not the first gaming to fashion connection we've seen, but with Swedish label Odeur recently being pegged for nods to Silent Hill's Pyramid Head, we only need one more loose relationship before we call it a trend. Then we can be trendy!

Go ahead. Mock high concept fashion if you must, but the next time you find yourself emaciated and wan in a moldy basement with nothing to comfort you but two tubes of fluorescent lighting, you're gonna wish you had that hat. Mark my words.

Timothy James Andrews: A-Block-A-Brick-Toe [Dazed via .tiff]

Style Savvy is a fully localized upcoming Nintendo-published DS game that's sure to thrill pre-teen girls everywhere, which is not exactly Kotaku's core readership. This is one game from Nintendo's showcase I figured I could skip last night in New York.

But I was curious.

The game involves business management and fashion show contests. It involves collecting clothes and showing off fashion designs. Stylishness is an undervalued game design element, one I haven't seen explored in many games (The World Ends With You, the Square-Enix RPG, is one rare exception). Maybe that's of interest? Maybe not.

Here's what caught my attention: the mechanic of the player's shop-owner interacting with customers is as heavily based on stereotypical female values as the core mechanics of most interaction in action games — shooting or punching the other guy — is based on stereotypically male ones.

A customer walks into your shop. She wants some new clothes. She tells you a little about herself. Note that. It involves listening or, because this is all-text, paying attention. The player then chooses what she or he thinks is the article of clothing the potential customer most wants and then either suggests they try it on or asks them to at least take a look at it. The implied values there are empathy and aesthetics. What does this other person want? What does this other person think will look good?

One can question whether the values implicit in the mechanic described above are truly feminine traits or simply human traits often attributed by society to women. But what struck me while checking out Style Savvy is how little they reminded me of mechanics from other games and how distinct they felt from the mechanics I'm used to in gaming encounters.

It may not be all that manly. That doesn't stop it from being interesting.

Of course, this is a limited edition, hand embroidered number, courtesy of Fummel & Kram. Why, it even comes with a tag that says "If lost, please return to ..." Because people who find lost scarves typically mail them back. And if they knew the price tag, they may be less inclined.

Rumor is Activision is threatening not to support Fummel & Kram unless it cuts the scarf's price by $100.

Fummel & Kram Pac-Man Scarf [ShopFatal, thanks Nelson N.]

In what will likely be the only time I ever link to any site with more than one circonflexe in its title, here is the "Lookbook" for the 2009/10 Fall and Winter collection for "Odeur." That's right, it's French for "odor." I guess it means something other than that, idiomatically, because to anglophones the word is commonly preceded by "body."

I feel that someone should point out to Odeur that their commentary on ... what, anonymity? Scalene triangles? Man's inhumanity to man? might infringe on some Konami IP. But I doubt there's any risk of brand confusion when you're dealing with these kinds of products.

Of course it begs for a high concept explainer, but as I'm out of my depth in both Silent Hill and haute couture, I leave that to you, dear readers.

Odeur: Autumn/Winter 2009/2010 Lookbook [Coûte que Coûte, thanks Thomas M.]

You can run over rooftops in white pants.

You can run up walls.

You can beat up dudes while wearing white pants.

You can hurt them.

Dressed in white pants, you may slay vampires.

You can throw fireballs while wearing you white pants.

Really, yes, you can throw fireballs while wearing white pants. [PIC]

Designed by giant ape specialists X-Large, the t-shirts will be available only at select Hong Kong stores between February 16 and March 15. Those lucky few who are interested in such a deal will be able to buy a bundle that includes the game, a t-shirt and a 2GB USB stick for around USD$80. Those just in it for one of the two shirts, they'll be going for around $40.

As you'll see in the gallery below, the stuff is actually quite presentable, and the big, UNSC supply case-looking plastic box the bundle comes in is a nice touch.

[thanks Thomas!]

Maybe they're trying to appeal to the the neatly dovetailing demographics of ageing game nerd and continental fashionistas. Maybe not. Maybe somebody at the photographers just likes Pac-Man and Lego. And wispy ladies.

Whichever it is, you can see the results are...well, they're something.

Fashion Aims at My Demographic with Legos and Retro Gaming [Gizmodo]

Kuzmich is currently enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Art, majoring in Video Game-Art design. "At first I wanted to get into costume design," she says, "but that soon changed to game design, especially since I frigging love games and love doing weird designs for characters."

How much does she love video games? She says that because of her "no video games whatsoever" is now included on the laundry list of things not allowed in the America's Next Top Model house. She adds, "They now know that there are no makeup lines named Nintendo DS."

People of Envy: Heather Kuzmich [Rahul Sood via GameCulture via Joystiq] [Pic]