This article was originally published on April 3, 2012. We're bumping it up for Mass Effect week. For a different view on Mass Effect 3's malleable ending, check out Stephen's take.

We should have known the conclusion would be trouble. Ending a game like Mass Effect 3 poses a special set of problems, because a central attraction of Western RPGs is that their systems respond to player choice. Mass Effect and its like are the classic case of games that generate stories through collaboration between designer and player. Drawing things to a close, however, requires the hand of the developer to show, often in ways that seem unattractive.

[Editor's Note: Spoilers follow after the break.]

This famously happened in the case of Fallout 3, which had an ending so widely disliked that the developers ultimately retconned it with DLC. As I write this, there are petitions to see the same happen with Mass Effect 3. This effort exists because the game's ending does not respect the player's investment in the universe or creative force in the game.

The Mass Effect series has always presented itself to players as a vehicle for them to make important, if difficult, decisions. From the first game, the player's choices as Commander Shepard have dictated who lives and dies, with results that ultimately define the fate of entire species in the trilogy's finale.

The end of Mass Effect 3 disregards the player's choices on both galactic and personal scales. In contrast to the exquisite, if occasionally opaque, ways the player's decisions dictated the outcome of Shepard's suicide mission in Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3's finale is essentially a railroad. Provided a player has gathered enough military force, all three possibilities for dealing with the series-long villains, the Reapers, are available. The player can opt to control them, destroy them, or join with them in an organic-AI synthesis of some kind. The choice only determines the primary color and some other minor details of an ensuing cutscene. This denies the player any meaningful feedback about this decision, and the game's refusal to elaborate in any serious way on what happens to the galaxy undercuts the importance of choices made in this and previous ME games.

However, these scenes also destroy the galaxy that the games spent so much time developing. No matter what the player chooses, the mass relays detonate spectacularly, releasing massive shockwaves. In the world of the game these relays are the lynchpin of galactic travel and commerce, and their removal separates its the various worlds by voyages that take years, rather than moments. Demolishing the paths of commercial and cultural exchange that defined the galaxy, however, is a minor problem compared to what the game itself states will be the result of the exploding relays.

Although it has recently been demonstrated that mass relays can be destroyed, a ruptured relay liberates enough energy to ruin any terrestrial world in the relay's solar system.

—Mass Effect 3 Secondary Codex, "The Reaper War - Desperate Measures"

Did you choose to cure the genophage, or do what the Dalatrass asked? It doesn't matter. Tuchanka and Sur'Kesh were destroyed.

Did you save the Geth, or the Quarians? Who cares? The fleet is wrecked and Rannoch has been obliterated.

Did you take back Earth, as the game's ad campaign promised you would? Not in any meaningful way: the world you fought to save is gone.

Was your Shepard a paragon? Too bad, buddy; now she's the galaxy's worst war criminal.

Destroying the relays nullifies not only the major decisions Shepard has made, but even the mission she undertook. The Reapers did not harvest all life, Shepard murdered it instead, eradicating not only all the principal civilized worlds of her time but also any primitive cultures unlucky enough to live near a mass relay.

Even the more personal choices were ignored, at least for my renegade Shepard. As the conduit exploded around her, she flashed back to images of her pilot, Joker, her mentor, Anderson, and... Liara? Well, Shepard had a fling with her once, but that was years in the past. They're just friends now. My Shepard had finally fallen for Garrus, even made love to him not long before the final battle. Yet she saw no vision of her lover in her final moments, nor even of her best friend outside the crew (Wrex, obviously). Instead, my Shepard's thoughts were apparently with the pilot she thought was an irresponsible cut-up.

At least Joker manages to save a few lives. Although almost all of Shepard's crew was with her on Earth for the final push against the Reapers, they somehow end up on Shepard's vessel, the Normandy, racing at lightspeed to escape the shockwave. The ship crash-lands on some hitherto unknown garden world, dooming Garrus and Tali to a horrific death by starvation. As organisms built on D-amino acids, they find L-amino life indigestible. Tali will likely have the worst of it, as when she inevitably tries to eat something it will certainly cause a painful allergic reaction on top of being non-nourishing.

This absurd sequence, which ignores not only the details of the game's universe but even obvious aspects of the immediate plot, points to the ending's failure to adequately mesh even with its own fiction. This also shows through in the explanation given for the Reapers themselves, which is that each Reaper is used to store an organic civilization so that all organic life will not be wiped out by synthetic lifeforms. In one sense, this is troubling because it implies that killing a Reaper is an act of genocide. The larger problem for the ending, though, is that it leans on the series' least interesting theme, and even then disregards everything that the games have conveyed on the subject.

After all, the genuine synthetic intelligences present throughout the series have generally not been inimical to organic life. The robotic Geth, although initially presented as aggressive foes, are later shown to have been the victims of pre-emptive attacks by the Quarians. Even the ones that joined the Reapers in the first game did so out of a desire for self-advancement, not out of intrinsic malice towards organics. The other true AI the series presents is EDI, whose voluntary aid repeatedly proves crucial in helping Shepard's missions succeed, and who might even be in love with Joker. Though the game undercuts itself by almost always placing synthetic lifeforms on the business end of Shepard's gun, in dialogue and plot the synthetics are neutral, or even allies.

Yet even though the story of the Mass Effect games refutes the necessity of war between AI and organics at every turn, the finale presents their conflict as inevitable. The ending does not even give Shepard the option to use the truth about the Geth to argue against the Catalyst that controls the Reapers.

In this and other ways, the ending doesn't reward the player for paying attention to the world the games have presented. Indeed, the more the player understands about the Mass Effect universe, the worse the ending seems. For a game series that had a rich backstory conveyed through dialogue, detailed factsheets, and miles of text, disregarding the lore is a significant act of disrespect towards the invested player. It argues that their interest in the world does not matter, not even to the world's originators.

Shrinking the possible outcomes of Shepard's final confrontation down to a few options allows the developers to exert the maximum amount of control over those moments, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, by ignoring the series' lore and discarding the effects of the player's choices, Mass Effect 3's ending disrespects the player's investment and engagement in the game's world. Handled that way, the conclusion argues that the player's time and emotional attachment have been wasted.

This transforms the developer-player relationship from creative collaboration to adversarial dictation. That transformation is exacerbated by decisions - the day-one "From Ashes" DLC released alongside a game-ruining face-import bug, Ashley's new look, and Jessica Chobot's cameo - that seem openly contemptuous of the series' core fans. Destroying the universe on their way out the door is the developers' ultimate attempt at seizing control of the creation, an exclamation that "This is mine, and you can't have it!"

This explains some fan reactions to the ending. A petition to alter the ending through a patch or DLC may seem unrelated to a forum post reinterpreting the existing conclusion as a hallucination. Both responses, however, represent players' attempts to seize control of the narrative back from the developers, by choosing a new series of events, or by choosing a new lens through which the existing events will be viewed.

Upset as these players are, a poor ending does not undo a wonderful game. Up until its last 15 minutes, Mass Effect 3 is excellent, a remarkable and moving culmination to an extended saga. The game's conclusion does not undo the excellent cooperative storymaking that went on in the previous 60-odd hours, or the player's investment in the universe. It does, however, disrespect them.

This article was originally published on June 6, 2012. We're bumping it up for Mass Effect week.

Like almost every other game, Mass Effect 3 has official subtitles. But that's not what we're looking at today. No, what you're about to see is what happens when people record themselves playing Mass Effect 3, upload videos to YouTube then let Google's service try and guess what's being said on screen.

It, um, doesn't always get things right.

Sure, of the tens of thousands of lines of dialogue to be found in the game (note: there's a few from earlier Mass Effect games as well), this is just a handful of examples where it says "piss", "cat" and "ass cheeks". Still. They're some wonderful examples.

You can find more over at Mass Effect Transcribed, linked below.

Jeffrey Commander [Tumblr]

This review was originally published on Kotaku on January 26, 2010. To celebrate Mass Effect week, we're bumping it up!

What kind of man (or woman) has intergalactic hero Commander Shepard become after saving the universe from the Reapers in Mass Effect? That's all up to you in BioWare's Mass Effect 2.

Shortly after the events in the original game, Commander Shepard comes down with a serious case of death, but death is only the beginning in Mass Effect 2. Reconstructed by the mysterious Cerberus organization, our hero is tasked with investigating the disappearance of several human colonies, an investigation that will lead him on another star-spanning adventure with an all-new cast of colorful companions by his side.

More than a simple sequel, Mass Effect 2 refines several of the original game's features, most notably the combat system, which now plays more like a third-person shooter than anything seen in the role-playing genre. Are the changes a giant leap in the right direction, or did BioWare make a massive mistake?

Loved
Walkin' the Walk and Talkin' the Talk: Mass Effect was very pretty, and featured top-notch voice actors. Mass Effect 2 is even prettier still, and the new additions to the cast give the original rogues' gallery a run for their money. Courtenay Taylor is delightfully vicious as Subject Zero. Wolverine voice actor Steve Blum is perfect as the gruff Krogan Grunt, and Jennifer Hale still shows up her male counterpart in the role of female Commander Shepard. The one bright, shining star in the cast, however, is Michael Beattie as Professor Mordin Solus. His rapid-fire Salarian science speech is a joy to listen to, and one particular conversation with him completely steals the show.

Hiding Krogan, Shooting Turian: The biggest shift between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 is the combat system. If you were to ignore the special skills and powers altogether, Mass Effect 2 is a third-person cover reliant shooter in the same vein as Gears of War. Once you master the duck and cover maneuver, the rest is icing on the cake. Using your party's powers effectively to overcome shields and barriers takes the combat system deeper, and issuing individual orders to your party members takes it even deeper still. It can be as complex as an advanced squad-based shooter or as simple as popping up from behind a box and taking your shot, but no matter how you play, it's always a shooter, and I quite like it.

It's Emotionally Engaging!: If Mass Effect 2 had failed to play on the player's emotions, BioWare CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka would look rather silly right about now. Fortunately for him, BioWare once again succeeds at drawing you into the lives of your companions. Each new member of your crew has a distinct personality and problems that, while fitting with the setting, reflect on issues that you and I can relate to. One needs to discover his roots. One wishes to reconnect with his son after being gone far too long. Some seek revenge; others, redemption. Even the most comical alien figures have a human side to them that helps bring the character closer.

Mass Effect caught a lot of flak for allowing the player's character to sleep with one of their companions, and that ability still exists in Mass Effect 2, though this time around I felt less inclined to form a bond with a character I thought was attractive, instead leaning more towards the characters I related to the fullest. I suppose that's what Dr. Ray meant by emotional engagement. Mission accomplished.

The Power of Choice: The theme of darkness versus light established in Mass Effect is expounded upon in the sequel, having just as important a place in the progression of the plot and development of relationships, only this time around the results of your choices can have more immediate impact. The conversation interrupt system adds to the spontaneous feel of the game's narrative, allowing the player to, at times, interrupt interactions with a bold move that falls either on the side of good - Paragon - or the side of not so good - Renegade. A popular example is a conversation with a guard at an elevator. When he refuses to give your character the information you require and begins mouthing off, a Renegade option appears, allowing the player to knock the chattering guard down an elevator shaft. Paragon interrupts include pushing a character out of the line of fire, or giving a grieving character a warm hug.

Your interactions with your teammates are dependent on this system as well, with higher levels of either side of the morality coin required to resolve certain story points. When you end the game knowing that things could have been completely different had you been just a little more bad ass, starting over again is an extremely attractive prospect.

Trimming the Fat: Some might call it dumbed-down, but I like to think of the changes to Mass Effect 2's inventory and skill management system as more of a streamlining. I'm a sucker for micro-management of skills and inventory in more traditional role-playing games, but with Mass Effect 2's newfound focus on visceral combat, these elements would have been terribly out of place. Now, instead of worrying about armor and equipment for an entire squadron of companions, Shepard need only worry about the armor and items (s)he's wearing, and instead of comparing stats on the pile of weapons cluttering up your inventory, you have a set arsenal, upgradeable and expandable through research, but much easier to manage than your standard RPG fare. You never have to worry about the armor your teammates are wearing, only the guns they are carrying, and the selection is so slim that it shouldn't take you more than a few moments to get your ground crew ready for action.

The Story Inside the Story: Mass Effect 2 is a grand space opera, and its characters are consummate performers, but with a stage to present them on, neither would be quite as satisfying. BioWare sets a damn fine stage, filling in the gaps between your story and the rest of the world with emails, overheard conversations, and the in-game encyclopedia. Like any good RPG developer, they've acknowledged that the bigger stories are just that; larger, more important parts of a whole that need the less important details behind them in order to stand out. It's the key to creating a believable universe, and BioWare excels at it.

Exploration for Fun and Profit: Those annoying driving levels from Mass Effect the first are gone, replaced with a much more compelling exploration system. As mentioned above, buying new equipment has been replaced with researching upgrades, and to research upgrades, you need specific amounts of four basic elements. While some can be found scattered about during story missions, your best bet to score research materials is to fly about the galaxy, dropping in on undocumented planets, and using your scanning system to locate mineral deposits. Once the scanner starts to spike, drop a probe, and the materials are yours. Scanning planets can also result in the detection of anomalies, which open up side quests that grant more experience, tech documents, and, most importantly, the money needed to keep your ship in fuel and mining probes.

It may sound boring, but I've spent hours traveling from planet to planet, mining for precious ore, despite having a relatively short amount of time to complete the game before posting this review.

Hated
Empire Syndrome: Mass Effect 2 is the second game in a planned trilogy, and it has a lot in common with the second installment of another popular science fiction trilogy, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps the reason I found the new character and extracurricular activities introduced in this installment so compelling was that the main story failed to hook me this time around. With the setting established and the overall story arc taking shape, Mass Effect 2 is less about plot twists and more about big set pieces. While I had a great deal of fun getting to the end of the game, overall it felt more like lead up to the third installment than a story that could stand on its own, especially when compared to the original.

The BioWare RPG Formula: It's time to change things up a little for us role-playing game fans, BioWare. Continuing a trend established in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and present in just about every other BioWare RPG since (Jade Empire, Dragon Age, Mass Effect), you gather companions, each of which eventually pull you off to the side to describe their personal issues to you, giving you a chance to delve deeper into their backstory via a special quest or mission. Perhaps it's time to change things up. Let players stumble onto character-specific quests, rather than having each of your party members hit you up for aid at the designated time. The feature was charming the first few times through, but a little variety wouldn't hurt.

A great deal of focus has been put on the ability to import your saved game from the original Mass Effect into Mass Effect 2, carrying over the decisions you made in the original. Unfortunately, I played Mass Effect on a PC that no longer exists, and my review copy of the game is for the Xbox 360, so I couldn't take advantage of the feature. The game therefore made certain assumptions about how my Shepard performed in the original title, which didn't quite jibe with my experience. If you have the means, I would highly recommend importing your save. Otherwise, if you have the patience, play through the original one more time before starting Mass Effect 2. I've a feeling you'll get much more out of the sequel if you do. That's not to say Mass Effect 2 isn't a good game for players new to the series; it's just a much better experience overall if you know where you're coming from.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's a tired old adage, but one that fits Mass Effect 2 to a tee. The combat system has been overhauled to appeal to an entirely different type of gamer, and some of the role-playing elements have been streamlined to ease shooter fans into the experience. I understand BioWare's reasoning for doing this, and I appreciate the fact that new fans will be drawn to a series that richly deserves their attention because of it. Perhaps the formulaic side quest structure is the developer's way of reassuring the RPG fans who loved the original game that this is still, to some extent, the Mass Effect they know and love. Put the two together, and you have a game that should appeal to a much broader audience, while maintaining the degree of emotional engagement that brings the whole experience together.

Mass Effect captured the imaginations of the role-playing crowd. Mass Effect 2 has successfully tweaked the formula, creating a more accessible game that's every bit the masterpiece that the original was. The experience should be different for everyone, but the final thought in every player's mind should be the same: bring on Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 2 was developed by BioWare and published by EA on January 26th for the PC and Xbox 360. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played through Xbox 360 version on normal difficulty, choosing soldier class for Shepard. Completed game, then continued, completing missions and mining for achievements. Then began a new game, carrying over my level 21 Shepard from the first play through, with experience intact and all equipment.

This post was originally published on Kotaku on August 28, 2009. To celebrate Mass Effect week, we're bumping it up!

What if Mass Effect was multiplayer? What if there was a way to get a taste of that, even if it was just in a solo mode? Now, strangely, there is.

Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station is the barely-hyped second downloadable expansion for BioWare's 2007 sci-fi game, a brief, belated and broken extra for a game already bursting with content.

It's an expansion about which I have more negative things to say than positive.

But I like it. Odd? Yes, well so is the content, which is a hint at, of all things, the multiplayer potential of Mass Effect.

Loved
Little and Late Yes, I like that this is a small oddity. I like that this is a drip of an expansion that got me playing Mass Effect, for just three more hours, 14 months after I last touched the sci-fi game. We can have our DLCs that meaningfully add new satisfying adventures to our favorite titles, that offer new modes of play or new maps to explore. But I'm happy to plunk five bucks down on what feels like an experiment. All Pinnacle Station entails is a trip to a space station in an asteroid belt and, in that station, 13 combat missions set up in a holo-deck-style simulator. Missions are set in five geologically distinct, walled levels and require the player to do one of the following: Kill a set number of enemies in a time trial; kill as many enemies as possible with each kill adding seconds to a countdown clock; gain control of a set number of checkpoints; or survive waves of enemy attacks as long as possible. These are the standard tasks not of the sprawling single-player role-playing game adventure that we knew to be Mass Effect but of many a multiplayer mode in other games. Play it. Imagine your AI squadmates are controlled by people and you too will be able to answer the question: Hmm, would I like Mass Effect as a multiplayer game?

Hated

Kobayashi Maru: I think I'm on to some meta joke that BioWare is pulling. Star Trek lore includes the Kobayashi Maru, an impossible computer-simulation scenario that only a cheater can win. I could describe Pinnacle Station the same way. The DLC requires that the player place first in each of its simulator challenges in order to complete this mini-adventure, but the missions are tuned in strange ways. Some missions are a cinch at the default difficulty. A few required me to drop the combat challenge to "novice" and then breeze through. I was using a Level 50 character for this, and, glancing around the Internet, I am not the only one doubting this DLC was properly balanced.

An Advertisement For The Future: Bring on early 2010 and Mass Effect 2, so I don't have to relive anymore the original game's awkward texture pop-in, un-interruptible dialogue, slow loading, awkward pause-based combat, and cumbersome inventory system. All being fixed for ME2, right? Please? This DLC doesn't fix Mass Effect's annoyances, not that I expected it to.

Pinnacle Station is similar to Fable II's See The Future pack in that it's kind of crazy. It is not a satisfying addendum to a beloved adventure but rather an unneeded appendix some bizarro-surgeon decided to put back into the organism.

That's why I liked it. And, yes, I'd take some Mass Effect multiplayer if there's any to be had.

(Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station was developed by BioWare and published by EA for the Xbox 360 and PC on August 25. Retails for 400 Microsoft points ($5). Played through on my Xbox 360 to the odd reward at its conclusion, over the course of three hours and two minutes. Read this note before you buy it, and don't hate me for writing it.)

There are two reasons the console port of Diablo III, announced by Blizzard last month and shown off at PAX East this weekend, could be the definitive version of the game.

The first reason is obvious: you can play offline. You don't have to worry about server errors or Time Warner Cable while playing this incarnation of Blizzard's action-RPG.

Reason #2 is harder to understand without getting your hands on the PlayStation 3 version of the third Diablo, but it becomes obvious almost as soon as you do: Diablo III feels much, much better on a controller than it does on a mouse and keyboard.

Put the pitchforks down, folks. I was skeptical too. I spent many, many hours in the demon-infested hells of Diablo II (and a few more with Diablo III), and for a while, I figured a console version would never work. When I think Diablo, I think "click, click, click."

But after just a few minutes with Diablo III on PS3—which trades in the clicking for nudging, jiggling, and mashing—I almost wish this series had been built for controllers all along.

I know. Blasphemy. Really, though, it feels like a different game: I hopped on a demo at PAX East this morning, loaded up a Demon Hunter, and wandered through one of the dungeons, flinging arrows and firing energy bolts as I danced my way around a mob of enemies. And it felt good. Surprisingly good.

To play this version, you move around with the left joystick while using the colored buttons to attack monsters and interact with the world. On the PS3 controller, you can assign attacks to R1 and all four of the colored buttons. You use L1 (and, I believe, L2) for potions. There's also a new evade command: you can use the right joystick to roll around and dodge enemy attacks.

The takeaway here is that you can move and attack simultaneously, instead of hammering your left mouse button to do just about everything. For a ranged attacker like the Demon Hunter, this is near-revolutionary. It feels graceful. Natural. More like you're inhabiting your character and less like you're guiding them from above.

Worth noting: this is the first Blizzard-developed console game in 20 years. You might remember console ports of the first StarCraft and Diablo—for Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1, respectively—but those were built by external companies. This one is all in house.

Likely you have questions. I did too. So after playing the Diablo III demo this morning, I headed to a back room to chat with Joshua Mosqueira and Matthew Berger, both designers on the DIII port.

My first question: is this the best version of the game?

"They're both our kids," Mosqueira said. "The thing to keep in mind is that they're different."

How diplomatic. Ever the good parents, Mosqueira and his team don't want to admit that one of their games is more successful than the other, but I suspect they have private conversations about how much better it feels to play something like Diablo III on a PlayStation controller.

I asked Berger and Mosqueira about a number of other subjects, from next-gen consoles to server issues. Let's go through them.

What's new? Other than the obvious—the whole "new console" thing—Blizzard says they've overhauled the boss battles, making them feel more like the sprawling fights you'd see in an action-RPG on your Xbox or PlayStation.

"We know that there's a huge tradition of boss battles on console games," said Berger. "We're going through bosses and updating visuals, cinematics. Also, the pacing."

The item system has also been revamped, and you can now see whether an item will boost your stats even before you pick it up. Your inventory, character, and quests pages are now all tabs of one menu screen, accessible via the select button on the PS3 version. And you equip items through a radial menu rather than a ragdoll screen.

"We don't want to simplify the game," Mosqueira said. "We just want to streamline the experience."

So just how much is new? Says Berger: "If you played it on PC, you should expect it to feel familiar, but you should also expect to be surprised." Okay!

Fans have already shown some anger at this port—one message board user theorized that the PC version of Diablo III was actually a "beta" for this one. I asked the designers if that was true. Their answer: no.

This version of Diablo III won't connect to Battle.net, so don't expect any sort of cross-play between your PS3 and PC. Instead, you'll use the PlayStation Network infrastructure to play online. You can also play co-op with four people in your living room. No split screen, though—"The last thing we want to do is make your nice big TV into four smaller TVs," says Berger.

Interestingly, when you're playing co-op, the looting system will go old-school. While in Diablo III on PC every player sees their own items and doesn't have to worry about anyone else ganking them, on consoles, while playing co-op, you'll all swim in the same treasure pool.

"Loot drops a bit more, but everybody gets to share it," said Berger. "So if he picks up your bow, you can just punch him. We let the players police themselves."

No real word on PlayStation 4 just yet. Blizzard's designers wouldn't talk next-gen consoles—the PR representative sitting in on our interview shut down any and all PS4-related questions—but they did seem excited about putting Diablo on Sony's next console.

Are there really people who still haven't played Diablo III? Last we heard, Blizzard said they sold 12 million copies of the controversial game. So I was skeptical: just how many PS3 owners who might be interested in Diablo III haven't already played it on PC?

"Just judging by the number of people coming by our booth," Mosqueira said, "at least 50% of the people haven't played Diablo III."

They're not worried about Error 37 this time around. "Our plan is to be 100% ready," said Berger.

No news on expansion packs, or how they'd work on consoles. "Right now we're focusing on getting the core game out," Mosqueira said. "We still need to figure out exactly how we'll handle DLC and that kind of stuff."

Blizzard is known for their frequent patches and content updates, which might seem like a difficult thing to pull off on consoles, but Mosqueira said they've had extensive conversations with Sony about the importance of flexible patching in a game like Diablo III, and that Sony is on board.

What took so friggin' long? It seems like Blizzard has been talking about bringing Diablo to consoles for quite a few years now, but according to Mosqueira, development didn't really kick into gear until last year, after Diablo III shipped on PC. So what were they doing until then?

"What took the longest is finding the team," Mosqueira said. "We have a stringent process, an interview gauntlet that can take up to six months. The core of the console team were all hired specifically 'cause of their console backgrounds."

When's it coming out? "Soon-ish," Mosqueira said.

"When it's ready," added Berger. "On Blizzard time, because it's a Blizzard game, and we're treating it like any other game."

Any other consoles? Blizzard's designers were coy about this one.

"Step one is making it awesome for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4," said Mosqueira. "We don't have any other announcements at this moment, aside from 'stay tuned.'"

So if Diablo III really can be played offline... The PC version of Diablo III was online-only. The console version of Diablo III has an offline mode. So I asked the designers: now that fans can look at the PS3 and see that yes, Diablo III can be an offline game, will we ever see an offline mode added to the PC version of the game?

"It's one of those difficult decisions we had to make," said Mosqueira. "Right now there's no plans. Some of the reasoning behind it is, the PC and console ecosystems are very different."

Blizzard and Sony both did some research and found that many PS3s are never connected to the Internet, he said. "So we figured the best way to offer that Diablo experience was to let players play offline."

It's no secret that Nintendo has had a major problem marketing the Wii U. Most non-gamers (and even some gamers) I speak with have no idea that it even exists. Even Jimmy Fallon couldn't quite figure it out—and he was supposed to be showing it off that night.

Now Nintendo has apparently ramped up its efforts to explain just what the hell that big, glaring "U" means with the posters that GTTV host Geoff Keighley spotted and Tweeted about at PAX East today. "Why Wii U?" the ad reads, followed by a lengthy list of all the things the Wii U does that that crappy old Wii simply doesn't. Keighley followed up with a second tweet explaining that you can tear the flyers away and take them home, like phone-pole ads for a neighborhood dog walker, just in case you forget all the things the Wii won't do.

I'll say this: at least we can be sure Nintendo is definitely aware of the issue. But strangely, it seems like they left "GameCube game compatibility" off that list. Now why would they do that? Check out the full poster below.

Saw this "Why Wii-U?" flyer at retail today from Nintendo. Speechless.
[Twitter]

We only just got confirmation that the HD remasters of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 are coming to North America, and already the first official trailer has surfaced. So what if it's partly in German?

As far as we know, this trailer was supposed to come out tomorrow. We've reached out to Square Enix to see if their plans have changed now that the German version is apparently out, but we haven't heard back yet.

In the meantime, enjoy the footage from the remastered Final Fantasy X, displayed at the highest quality that Youtube can manage. In addition to giving us a peek, the trailer confirms once again that X and X-2 will be sold separately on Vita, rather than bundled together like on PS3. Our next question, naturally, is whether Sony's much-appreciated Cross-Buy principle will apply in any way, but it may be a while before we get an answer to that one.

Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Debut Trailer
[Reddit]

Day two of PAX East gave birth to new DuckTales: Remastered details, the announcement of Dust: An Elysian Tail on Steam, a whole slew of XCOM and Civilization news, and more Mass Effect 3 stats than you could ever want to know.

It also played host to some of the most imaginative cosplayers this side of Comic-Con. Kotaku's reporters hoofed it all over the convention snapping shots of these talented individuals in between panels and meetings, and you can see the results below. Check out day one's gallery one right here for more!

(Space-age clockwork! I love it, I've got chills!)

Watch out for more coverage tomorrow as PAX East draws to a close!

Most of you who played Mass Effect 3 are just too nice. You were paragons. I was a renegade. Most of you played as a male commander Shepard. I played as a female. But just about all of us cured the genophage.

All that and more are detailed in a fascinating batch of Mass Effect 3 stats released by BioWare during the studio's Mass Effect retrospective panel at PAX East.

Take a look at the date. How did your experience compare?

UPDATE: The Mass Effect panel featured five of the series' top designers and the guy who played Kaiden. In a lightning round involving questions Tweeted by fans, they were asked to weigh in on a few things. I Tweeted some of those results:

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week's best content.

Up above, we see a cosplay of Katamari Damacy, which comes from PAX East.

Now let's move on to reading this week's best content, courtesy of us.

Owen Good shares the story of how one gamer was able to prove his residency thanks to his Xbox Live purchases. More »

Patricia isn't too impressed with Gears of War: Judgment, but she's reserving judgment (hehe) until she can play with the public online. More »

Brian Ashcraft tells us about all the conspiracy theories surrounding Phantom Pain and its supposed developer. More »

Stephen Totilo contemplates the sexualized female characters in God of War: Ascension and how we're meant to kill them. More »

Jason Schreier explains how everything went right and wrong and right again. More »

Patricia wonders why players sometimes get caught up in favorites and ignore other weapons, characters, maps, etc. More »

Stephen reflects back on the direction EA's now ex-CEO took the company during his tenure. More »

Gergo Vas rounds up a bunch of easter eggs for the new expansion. More »

Kirk Hamilton suffers through this new The Walking Dead game. More »

Jason interviews Adam Sessler for a fascinating story about his life and career. More »

Quintin Smith offers five board games that are great for social play. More »

Stephen explains what we are and are not allowed to talk about when reviewing video games. More »

Patricia finds a bunch of weird and crazy art. More »

Stephen investigates why people like to draw penises in games. More »

Jordan Rivas gives us one last crazy but fun theory about Mass Effect 3's ending. More »

Patricia finds that Luigi's solitary ghostbusting adventure is worth playing. More »

Stephen finds one of the most amazing costumes at PAX. More »

A round up of the notable PAX cosplay this Friday. More »

The first day of PAX East brought all manner of delightfully geeky, creative costumery to the Boston Convention Center. Our reporters at the event have been snapping as many photos as they can, all while keeping up with the hustle and bustle of one of the biggest video game conventions in the world.

Here are some cosplay highlights from the first day of PAX East 2013.

We'll start with Amy Demicco, whose amazing dress made of Magic cards we shared earlier:

Man. Here are the other highlights, as captured by Chris, Stephen, Tina and Jason:

(Hey, it's New England Luigi!)

We'll have more crazy costumes for you tomorrow. If you're at the show and see one of us walking around, say hi and give us your best blue steel.

Poor Luigi, always in Mario's shadow. Even when Luigi set off on his own ghost-wrangling adventure in Luigi's Mansion over a decade ago, it was still as though he was defined by Mario's absence. The game dedicated a whole button to calling out Mario's name!

In the new 3DS sequel Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, the green-clad Mario brother is pulled back into the ghostbusting business. The ghosts are going haywire, you see. It's up to you round them up. You do this by unloading a charge of your flashlight on ghosts, and then using your trusty Poltergust 5000, a ghostbusting device that straps onto your back, to suck the ghosts up. That's not all you can do with it, though. The Poltergust 5000 has two functions: vacuuming and blowing. Like in the first game, you use these abilities to poke and prod your way through rooms. Who knew so many of the world's problems could be solved with an overpowered vacuum?

You'll capture ghosts, solve puzzles, and generally cause havoc. You aren't the only one causing mischief, either. The cackling, conniving ghosts cause trouble, but they're clearly having a lot of fun while they're at it. It reminds me a little of superstitious belief in some religious communities that says that when we lose things, it's really ghosts and angels having a ball with our possessions; nothing malicious per se.

Dark Moon feels supersized in comparison to the original game. There are six mansions (!), each with a bevy of themed rooms and multiple floors. The number of things you can do is huge, too—you can go from riding balloons, to watering plants, to setting things on fire and just about everything in between; this game features far more puzzles and objects to interact with than the first game did.

It's an adventure so grand and extensive that you won't wonder where Mario is. This is Luigi's adventure, and that's great, because honestly? Luigi is the more interesting character-even if he is a total scaredy-cat. It's funny to see the green-hatted brother cower and chatter his teeth at anything that moves, and it feels like he has more texture than Mario does.

The flip side of having such an extensive adventure is that, at times, the game feels like it drags on. If the first game could be criticized for being too short (or, in my books, just long enough), the new Luigi's Mansion could be criticized for being too long. You can tell Nintendo took the criticisms to heart and did their best to try to provide "value," but they resort to padding the game a bit too often.

You go into all the mansions with the purpose of collecting the dark moon piece hidden inside, but each mansion is broken down into smaller levels. Even if you enter knowing exactly where the piece is, something always happens to get in the way: you might, for instance, have to recover an item deep inside the mansion, only to have it stolen by ghosts, but then you recover it, but then it gets stolen by a ghost-dog, then you recover it, and then…

The fragmented setup can lead to a lot of backtracking as you search for what might be different in a familiar location across multiple levels, which contributes to the padded feeling. But the level structure makes me think the game is best played in short bursts—no more than 30, maybe 40 minutes for later levels. That way, you don't end up backtracking too much in one go. When most of the levels are about 20 minute affairs, and because Dark Moon makes you hungry for exploration, keeping to short play sessions might be difficult.

I often wanted to keep going, even when the game absolutely stumped me—which happened more times than I expected. The folks at Next Level Games are clever indeed. Dark Moon is a game for the observant; you can think of it a little like a point-and-click adventure game. The objects you need to interact with may not always be immediately obvious—heck, they might not be visible at all.

That's where your new dark light comes into play, which you can use to make hidden objects appear. You use the same intuition you might in a Mario game when you think "this is where an invisible block would be," only in this case, it would be some sort of everyday household item, like a vase or a dresser. Actually realizing that an item is missing someplace can take a while.

Solving puzzles and going deeper into the mansions also means encountering ghosts. Like before, you can think of ghost hunting as supernatural fishing, with the player having to 'reel in' the ghosts. The ghosts will struggle and try to run away. You have to tilt the circle pad in the opposite direction. At the start of the game, catching ghosts is rather easy, but as you go along, not only does their HP increase, but stunning them with your flashlight becomes more difficult. Maybe they're wearing sunglasses. Maybe they're in a full suit of armor. You need to figure out how to deal with different types of situations, which can keep things fresh.

The ghosts, in a way, are what disappointed me most about this game. In the first Luigi's Mansion, the major ghosts were all characters—people who used to inhabit the spaces you explore. Ghosts so attached to the material plane, they continued living out their daily existence in the afterlife. It also made it feel as if Luigi was intruding, as if it wasn't really Luigi's mansion. (These newer mansions don't belong to Luigi either though! Why are the games called "Luigi's Mansion"?)

You only get repeating cannon-fodder ghosts, which made it difficult for me to get invested in that side of the game. It felt like the ghost-hunting was something I did in between puzzles rather than something fun to do for its own sake. It wasn't until the later portion of the game, where it gave me intense ghost battles, that I felt thrilled by these otherworldly encounters. Really, the latter half of the game is where Dark Moon shines—the game takes its gloves off and gives you environments without maps, multi-room spanning puzzles, and mansions that are exotic enough that they can't be compared to the mansion in the first game.

That last bit is crucial, since at the start, Dark Moon might feel like a rehash of the first game, only not as good thanks to the ghosts' relative lack of character and ample backtracking. Newer players won't have a point of reference and might not care, though. My colleague Kirk Hamilton hasn't played the first game, and tells me he finds the new one to be quite charming.

The boss battles, meanwhile, tended to infuriate me. Without giving anything away, some battles felt too obtuse, while others require you to go through too much tedium. I suspect that half of my game time was me either being stuck in puzzles, or stuck on boss battles. I wanted to quit the game multiple times, and probably would have were I not reviewing it—but, I'm glad I stuck through it, since the game truly does have outstanding moments.

Finally there's multiplayer. You gotta give props to something called "Scarescrapper." There are four modes in Scarescrapper: Hunter, Rush, Polterpup and Surprise. I didn't dabble with multiplayer too much; I've only played a few matches with fellow Kotaku editors. Hunter reminds me a bit of a roguelike: the point is to climb through floors, capturing all the ghosts on the floor. You don't know what items do at first until you get them, and the rooms are randomly generated.

I also played Polterpup, which involves chasing down ghost puppies throughout levels. Both require coordination and communication with your teammates, as you'll need help with tough rooms, or to undo curses, traps and the like. Surprisingly, ghosthunting lends itself pretty well to multiplayer. I won't say it's on Mario Kart's level, but definitely something to mess around with if you're curious. It's too bad that you can't use the 3DS to talk to your friends while playing, and that you can't join mid-game (which makes falling out of a game a major bummer, as you'll have to restart). Though this does seem like a game that would be really fun to play locally, with three other players in the same room. Not everyone has to own the game to play, though the local download-play options are more limited than if everyone has the full game.

Nintendo has deemed 2013 the "Year of Luigi." And while Luigi's Mansion may not have felt like a game that needed a sequel, Dark Moon exists, and it has something to prove: Luigi can carry a game all by himself. I'm not convinced the series needed to go for more, more, more, (bigger! better! faster!) but I'm sold on Luigi himself. In fact, I want to see more of Luigi than I do his famous brother. Even if Luigi is kind of a goof.

Meet Amy Demicco. She's wearing the coolest dress in Boston this weekend at the PAX East convention. Her dress is made almost entirely out of playing cards for Magic: The Gathering. She estimates that she's got about 800 cards in this ensemble, mostly in the helmet.

Check out the video above and she'll explain why and how she did it.

Here's a close-up shot of her axe, which is also made of Magic cards:

There's one downside to all this: Magic cards, she told me, aren't all that sturdy. Sweat separates the fronts from the backs, and by the end of the weekend, her ensemble won't be wearable. For now, though, it's awesome.

Check out Amy's tumblr for more about this and other Magic-card outfits she's made and worn.

Capcom announced today at their PAX East panel that they're resurrecting the beloved DuckTales platformer.

Developed by Wayforward and Capcom, DuckTales: Remastered is something of a remake based on the original Nintendo version of DuckTales. It'll be out this summer for Xbox Live, PSN, and Wii U.

DuckTales, originally released for the NES way back in 1989 (and later for the Game Boy), has become something of a cult classic over the years. Remembered for its solid platforming gameplay and some killer music—the Moon theme song is often brought up as one of the best game tracks of all time—DuckTales has been the object of much nostalgia.

Blizzard has just announced Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, a free-to-play collectible card game set in the universe of Warcraft.

You can play as one of nine World of Warcraft classes, collect cards, and battle people online. No release date yet, but the game will be out for PC and Mac, with an iPad version coming "shortly thereafter."

The game is coming out soon, Blizzard said—"Not Blizzard soon, but IRL soon." You can sign up for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft on Blizzard's website right now, and the beta will launch this summer.

This game was developed by a small team of 15 people, Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo said while announcing the game during a PAX East panel this morning. The goal: create a simple, competitive game with a more mobile team than they've used for bigger beasts like StarCraft II and Diablo III. They want it to be "small in scope, but epic in gameplay," Pardo said.

During the panel today, Blizzard brought out an announcer to describe a 1v1 game as it happened. It looks a lot like Magic: The Gathering with Warcraft characters and abilities: we saw Warlocks and Druids facing off, summoning monsters, and attacking one another in turn-based combat.

The characters and beasts chat and comment as they fight, sometimes saying hilarious things in traditional Blizzard style. There are a ton of Warcraft-themed cards, from ghouls and demons to Ragnaros, the fire god. This looks very cool.

Here's the trailer:

And here's a demo video:

Here's a look at the deck-building process:

Here's the official "Building the Fire" video:

Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix is the newest in a long line of last generation titles being remastered for the current generation of HD consoles. Like many of these remasters, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix is a collection of several games—in this case, Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories. It also comes with a compilation movie using a remastered version of the cutscenes in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (which we covered earlier this week). But while most HD collections feature only visual updates, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix goes one step beyond to add in gameplay tweaks as well as new content never seen before outside of Japan to make this the definitive version of these games.

Good — A Great HD Remaster

Despite being done by only two people, this is a beautiful remaster. Both Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix and Re:Chain of Memories look much smoother and more detailed than they did previously on the PlayStation 2. Sure, the backgrounds still have the same polygon count as always, but the textures are all well re-done in HD. But don't take my word for it; check out our comparison video between the old version and the new.

Good — Modern Control Updates

Most major changes to gameplay come in the Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix portion of this collection. First off is the camera. Previously relegated to the L2 and R2 buttons, the camera can now be controlled via the right thumbstick (like in Kingdom Hearts II). And while after my first play of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix at Jump Festa late last year I complained that it felt like I was fighting the camera, I have found that turning off the auto camera in the options menu fixes this perceived problem handily.

The other big gameplay change involves interacting with objects outside of battle. Instead of having to cycle through the command menu every time you want to open a box, the triangle button now serves as the all-purpose, context-sensitive button. Again, this serves to make the game play more like the subsequent games in the series and is thus a very welcome change.

Good — Another Shot at all the Extra Goodies You May Have Missed

As mentioned above, the version of the first Kingdom Hearts that is in the collection is not the original release but is rather the Japan-only Final Mix. This version of the game includes new cutscenes, conversations, and bosses that weren't available in the original international release.

And while the other game in the collection, Re:Chain of Memories, was released on the PS2 back in 2008, many have probably never played it because of having played the original GBA version of the game years before or simply because they had moved on to the next generation of consoles by 2008. Of course, if you are a PAL gamer, this was never even released in your territory. So if you have never played Re:Chain of Memories for whatever reason, this is the perfect chance to give it a try.

Mixed — Still Feels a Little Dated

But even with the controls and camera updated, it still feels dated in how it plays. The jumping is imprecise and floaty, and the automatic edge grabbing is iffy at best. And considering some boss

battles and many platforming sections rely on this mechanic, it can be more than a bit frustrating. Similarly, conversations that would be voiced today are left silent, and the combat is nowhere nearly as fast and flashy as more recent iterations in the series. But all that said, these are just natural effects of the game being over a decade old, and undoubtedly fans will be able to overlook these flaws.

Final Thoughts

There is no doubt that the versions of Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories found in Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix are the best versions of the games in existence. They look better, play better, and even have content that will be new to the vast majority of English-speaking Kingdom Hearts players. And while you can definitely feel the game's age, it's easier than ever to see the charm that has made this series so popular.

Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix was released in Japan on March 14, 2013, for the PlayStation 3. It is scheduled for a Western release sometime later this year.

Stone statues play a prevalent role in Japanese life. You see them at Buddhist Temples and Shinto Shrines, and you also see them in front of houses and businesses or in gardens as decoration. Ditto at cemeteries.

Japanese stonemasons are called "sekizaiya-san" (石材屋さん) or "sekizaiten" (石材店). They primarily focus on carving grave stones. The vast majority of Japanese are cremated, and in most areas, you must legally be cremated. However, a small percentage of people in the countryside are buried in the ground.

Graves consist of a large stone that sometimes looks like an obelisk on which the family name is carved. Stone craftsmanship is, thus, of the utmost importance, and to show off their abilities, sometimes stonemasons carve out much more than just tombstones.

There are the usual Buddhist and Shinto stone statues, which are found in temples and shrines, or used as protective markers on roadsides (more here).

Next to the Buddha statues, there might be cute traditional yokai characters like the tanuki. Or, occasionally, you might spot newer characters, like Pikachu from Pokémon or Mickey Mouse. People in Japan, too, are sometimes surprised when they happen upon, say, Hello Kitty or Ultraman carved in stone.

A few times I've actually seen stone versions of cartoon characters at shrines and temples. They certainly weren't placed in places of worship and were used more in a decorative sense in the garden, much like a garden gnome in the West. They're there simply because someone likes the characters.

However, for a country that has traditionally placed statues of spirits for good luck, stone statues of today's mythical creatures, whether that's Pikachu or Godzilla, don't seem all that out-of-place. They're modern day folklore.

石像って [ウルトラ博物館]
固そうなアンパンマン [固そうなアンパンマン]
金庫屋 [女性金庫診断士ちょこっと日記]
日本の墓石二大巨頭、松原・内藤 [隣の夫婦のブログ]
暇なんで [とりぷるふっく]
石材店 [B-LABO]
宇都宮駅東カオスランド [ひばらさんの栃木探訪]
石の多田 [ながいタウン]
いらっしゃいませ [篠﨑石材店]
< ahref="http://zeon1971.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-370.html">石材店の前で撮った珍百景 [Zeon]
こんなところにｋｉｔｔｙちゃんが [中年オヤジのKLX放浪記]
ゴジラで～す！ [かわちのはむちゃん]
石材やさん [テオドラさんの旅行記]
松月院前の交差点近くの石材屋さん [赤塚溜池公園のスナップ]
このまちの人たち、おもしろすぎる [竹田城]

This is the last time that you'll ever lose someone
after this it's you and your friends
it's you and your friends.

—Stars, "The Last Song Ever Written"

I have a theory about the end of Mass Effect 3.

Not a serious theory, mind you. A crazy theory, the kind even I don't take seriously, but find it fun to think about. Essentially, it's that everything in the Citadel DLC is not preceding the final events of the campaign but that it follows them.

Spoilers follow for Mass Effect 3 and the Citadel DLC.

Mostly, Shepard dies at the end of Mass Effect 3 (with one exception), which isn't problematic for my theory—it's actually essential to it. My theory is that Shepard does die in the final moments of ME3's campaign, and the events of Citadel are a kind of afterlife.

The lyric at the top of this article is from a song by Stars called "The Last Song Ever Written". It's a poetic, beautiful take on death. It's also a comforting take on death, that sees it as a final separation before an eternal joining.

It's purely conjecture on my part, but it was sparked by something in the DLC. On the Silversun Strip, the area of the Citadel in which the DLC occurs, you can speak with a virtual intelligence assistant who points out local features. Strangely, you can ask about an area that is not on the Silversun Strip, and has nothing to do with the DLC events at all. It's a nightclub on the Citadel called Purgatory. You can visit the Purgatory club just like you could before, but none of the DLC content changes anything there. For some odd reason, Shepard can just ask Avina (the virtual intelligence) about Purgatory.

Avina responds strangely. She starts to define what purgatory is - the religious concept, not the nightclub. Shepard interrupts her, and clarifies the inquiry was about the nightclub. Avina responds, even more peculiarly, that there is no record of Purgatory.

This is likely just oversight, or some attempt to allude to Purgatory being a shady establishment. But logically, it is impossible. You can still visit Purgatory even after updating the game with the Citadel DLC. It certainly hasn't shrunk in size; it still has three stories and hundreds of patrons. There's a still a transit system hub right in front of it, in an area where there are no other establishments or features around. The Citadel authorities can't, in all seriousness, not have any record of it.

I asked myself immediately why a reference to the afterlife would be included, and that's when it dawned on me that a way to read Citadel is that Shepard is dead, and this is a kind of anti-purgatory limbo he's stuck in—it just happens to have an awesome apartment, all his friends, a casino and an arcade.

Basically, it's an awesome way to be dead.

But I couldn't think of many other connections. Silver is often used as a metaphor for a link between the spiritual plane and physical plane. Tying that to the setting of the DLC, the Silversun Strip, feels like a stretch. In the DLC you face a clone of Commander Shepard. Witnessing a doppelganger is a typical omen of death, but in my theory Shepard is already dead, so I'm not sure that fits either.

I think I like the idea because it has a finality to it regarding all the things fans said they wanted—Shepard with your squadmates, happy and celebrating. For some that's ruined by knowing it all ends badly, but for me this theory spins that take, and makes it so the time spent on the Citadel with friends is the last image.

This is about death

The original ending of ME3 unintentionally offended people's perceptions about death. It offended them so much that in addition to outright denying that the original ending even happened, fans clamored for a rewrite. And to some extent, they got it.

The Extended Cut DLC from Bioware was a seldom seen response to a fervent disapproval of a game's conclusion, and while the reasons for people's displeasure are diverse and intricate, I think a major (and mostly undiscussed) factor is death and how we perceive it.

Without the EC content, all of the endings were vaguely similar, and generally just vague. For all of the things the EC fails to do, it addresses the vagueness of Shepard's death so that it becomes easier for people to accept. There are still massive storytelling shortcomings even with the EC, but it deals with this one serious failing of the original ending.

With the EC, in the Control ending Shepard essentially becomes deified, overseeing the galaxy, controlling former enemies and aiding allies. In the Synthesis ending, Shepard's essence is joined with everyone in the galaxy, synthetic or organic, and serving as a catalyst for their merger. These are common ideas for death and afterlife (becoming supernatural or your consciousness being absorbed back into nature of the universe).

In the Destroy ending Shepard just dies. No allusion to an afterlife, just a legacy of victory and someone who didn't compromise. It's a harder take on death, but still one that many are able to accept. It seems we're willing to accept death as long as we know that, valiantly, we died ‘for something.'

These clarifications in the EC hardly change the sour taste of a undeniably botched ending, but they were enough for a large portion of fans to at least accept Shepard's end even if they still didn't like it much.

Indoctrination and Aeris

But even despite the EC, some people still don't accept it. Personally I've come to accept the Destroy ending. But even so, I'm still coming up with alternate theories like the one above. Why is that? Why so many mental back flips just to avoid what's clearly in the content?

The Indoctrination Theory is the earliest and most successful of these alternate theories. The Indoctrination Theory (IT) is that the trilogy's antagonists, the Reapers, used their mind control abilities (Indoctrination) to trick Commander Shepard, and the players, into a false choice where every available choice actually leads to defeat, or in the case of the Destroy ending, apparent defeat.

IT supporters claim the only correct option to take is the Destroy ending, because the other two endgame choices spare the Reapers. The theory is essentially proposing the entire end sequence is a hallucination, that it doesn't really happen. And the whole point of it is to trick you into not destroying the Reapers, your stated goal throughout the trilogy. The only way to win is to destroy the Reapers and end the hallucination, even though the actual content in the game doesn't at all show that destroying the Reapers ends any kind of hallucination.

What happens in the case of the Destroy ending is exactly what the player is told will happen. The Reapers are destroyed, along with some collateral damage and arguably some innocent folks. But the amount of reasoning and logic that has gone into IT is staggering. It would need its own post to deconstruct.

This much fervency, this much thought going into a theory aimed at entirely undoing the events clearly shown in a game is a powerful phenomenon among a fandom, but it's not unprecedented.

The death of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII also sparked countless theories and speculation that the character wasn't really dead. Theories included that she shouldn't have died based on her wounds, and that players could somehow unlock a different outcome where the character lived.

Huge convoluted theories emerged and people vehemently defended them. Certain combinations of in-game items, specific events triggered, and the level of your party members could somehow save Aeris. In issue three of Kill Screen magazine, Brian Taylor covers the save Aeris phenomenon in great detail (it's some of the best games writing I've ever read) and it's not surprisingly similar to Indoctrination Theory.

The same hopeful desperation has developed around IT because of all the things we're forced to reckon with through fiction, death is the one we're most sensitive about. For everything the Extended Cut brought to the table it still didn't let us a chance to join our crew one last time. Your crew is what the series was always about. That last chance is worth some mental rewrites.

Citadel is a snapshot, and the pinnacle, of camaraderie and companionship in the Mass Effect series. And in game, the iconic moment of the DLC is when your crew actually snaps a photo of their party, so the memory can last forever. And in my take, that moment does last forever.

It's the last thing Bioware gave us that's related to the story and characters of this trilogy. It's the last thing I'll play, the last time I ever play Mass Effect 3. The endings from the Extended Cut were needed because of how botched the original endings were. Bioware said all along there wouldn't be a major overhaul to the ending through DLC, but I think in some ways they reversed on that in the end.

Citadel is the ending Mass Effect deserved, even if it's not the one it needed when everyone was watching. This is a quieter end for a trilogy that spokes volumes about what could be achieved in storytelling, world building, and characterization through games. It's quiet, and profound, and true. In so many ways, a fitting end.

Jordan Rivas was going to be a journalist when he grew up, but figured out professional journalism makes writing less fun. He writes independently at sortiv.com and concocts tweets @sortiv on Twitter. This article was republished with permission.

On November 6, 2012 a profoundly simple game called Curiosity was officially launched on iPhones, inviting people to chisel away at a massive cube composed of millions of blocks.

Players from around the world started poking at the cube. There was a stupendous prize inside that would take players, working in unison, ages to unlock. Presumably to alleviate boredom, Curiosity gamers tried to make their mark, by chipping out the shape of some letters or a simple picture.

According to an official time stamp on Twitter, in the wee hours of November 5, some players had actually already downloaded into the game. They were cracking blocks. And on day -1, what did they etch into that massive blank block?

A penis.

Why are people doing this? Oh, this called for investigative report, of course! This article, which is all about the results of that investigation, is, obviously, NSFW...

Of course.

Who isn't familiar with this irrepressible urge to draw a penis in a game? Or, hell, to draw one anywhere?

Not that I've done it. Maybe you haven't either.

But, in gaming, as in so many other areas of life that provide a canvas for expression, drawing penises is nearly an automatic thing. Why do people do this? Are they acting out? Are they testing the limits—as gamers in particular are wont to do—of what they can technically get away with? Of what they can pull off in a system that may not be designed for them to do such a thing?

We don't talk about it much, other than to giggle or smirk or just shake our head. If you look around, though, you'll see this stuff everywhere.

Look, if you think a game will allow it, you can assume someone's drawn a penis in it.

The new SimCity, for example.

Minecraft (45 blocks long, 27 high, and 13 blocks wide)

Call of Duty

LittleBigPlanet

Trials Evolution

ModNation Racers

Halo Reach

Skyrim (From gamer Papidamelo's "XXL Penis Flaccid Cut and Uncut Nude Male" mod, downloaded about 6,000 times since its creation in February 2012 and the rare example in these mods of a male modder suggesting they're adding a penis to a game because they find them attractive "Not everyone playing skyrim is str8," he's written on mod message board.)

Garry's Mod

Scribblenauts (Well, ok, not really… but they tried.)

Even if you think it's not possible to draw a penis in a game, people have done it.

Grand Theft Auto IV? Penis-bike.

Battlefield 3? Gamer Oli Gill drew this one with virtual C4.

Why is this?

For the last six months I've not come up with a good answer. I've been asking. I've asked game designers. I've asked gamers. I've asked scientists. I haven't been investigating this constantly. There are, truth be told, better things a reporter can do with their time than to keep asking why people seem to love drawing dicks.

Nevertheless, I did inquire. A bunch.

"There are many different possible explanatory frameworks for considering this question: Freudian, Marxist, Feminist, Deconstructionist, Evolutionary-Psychologist, Existentialist, etc," game designer and head of New York University's game studies program, Frank Lantz, told me last fall when I began to interrogate the matter.

"You might as well use the question ‘Why do people draw dongs?' as a proxy for ‘Why are we here?' 'What is the good life?' ‘Why is there something instead of nothing?' or any other Big Philosophical Question."

We probably all have good guesses, right? People draw penises because they think it'll shock people or because it's one of society's few visual taboos and because they're not that hard to draw.

I live in New York City, and if you keep your eyes open for them, as I have, you'll spot penis graffiti all over the place.

Around the corner from the office.

On the C-train.

It's part of our culture.

In the 2007 movie Superbad Jonah Hill's character confesses that he spent his childhood drawing pictures of penises.

But you can go back way further than 2007 to chart this societal obsession. You can go back to a massive chalk drawing on a hill in England, circa the early 1600s. (Image via Google Earth)

Or go all the way back to the oldest petroglyph ever discovered on Earth. We're talking about the oldest rock carving by a person anywhere. Carved, scientists say, supposedly about 10,000 years ago.

Here's a sketch that illustrates the carving's elements, via our friends at io9.

As prepared as you may be to see someone draw a penis in any and every game, it can still be jarring to see, say, Sonic the Hedgehog replaced with one.

But of course you can:

The creator of this bit of outsider art is a YouTube user named Daku Neko, who makes a lot of mods that replace characters with, well, not always penises. You've seen Sonic replaced with a penis. Daku Neko also replaced Sonic with the Wind Waker version of Zelda hero Link… and with the Pokemon Lucario. Each of those videos is about a 50th as popular as the Sonic-as-penis one.

I recently reached out to Daku Neko to find out why he does this stuff. No response yet, though my message to him may simply not have reached his residence. According to Skype contact info, he resides in "fuckville." He'd announced the mod on YouTube with the line: "FUCKING PENISES EVERYWHERE." So much for making that the headline of this piece.

UPDATE: I heard from Daku Neko, who writes: "Why did i make a penis mod for Sonic Generations? BECAUSE I'M BAT-SHIT INSANE!"

That question of "why would you do this" is often met with a "why not"? But it also seems to act almost as a universal challenge, as if we as a society have agreed that there's one thing that is potentially creatable in any game and that everyone has a shot at making it. And that something is, it seems, a penis.

That's the message I feel I'm getting from gamer "illegalmonkey", who posted a helpful video on YouTube showing how to make a penis in the character editor of fighting game Soul Calibur V.

"Why make this video you ask?" Illegalmonkey asked of illegalmonkey in the description below the video. "Why, to showcase the character creation tool in Soul Calibur 5 of course!! And c'mon, let's face it. If Namco didn't want us to make shit like this they wouldn't have given us the tools to do so, so exactly!"

That Minecraft penis higher up in this article was built by a YouTube user called MinecraftManifestTV, who also built the self-professed largest wheatfield and largest diamond in the game.

He's by no means the only creator of penises in Minecraft. Still, it seems, that he got some flak for making them and felt the need to offer the following defense below his video: "Just because I made a penis in minecraft it doesn't mean I'm gay. I have been dating the same girl for almost 3 years now. As for me not 'having a life', Minecraft is a hobby of mine. I want to make minecraft videos for a living, so I need to put my time and effort into it. I already have a fulltime job, and go to college. I would call that a life. I built this for the sake of having the title of "first functional minecraft penis" built. I obviously don't need this, and there is no purpose for it. I just seen it as a fun challenge. Subscribe if you want to see more."

Minecraft may be today's premiere video game for drawing penises, but before that game there was Spore. The ambitious evolution simulator included a malleable creature creator that enabled people to make adorable or horrifying creatures in virtually any shape that you'd normally be able to mush clay into.

The creature creator was released before the game, which means that before there was Spore there were already Spore penises.

"I do know that I was very pleasantly surprised by the awesome creatures the Something Awful forums produced when we released the creature editor ahead of the game," game designer Chris Hecker, who helped make Spore told me last year. Here's a batch of those creations. "They were incredibly creative, and sure, there were a few dongs, but for the most part the creatures were amazing and intricate and thoughtful, even the Sporn ones!"

An example of a Spore "dong."

Something Awful users didn't have the monopoly on Spore penises.

There are plenty:

.

.

Here's a how-to.

And there's this one which more than 400,000 people have looked at on YouTube:

"I do think the "push the boundaries" instinct is important to how games work for people, too," Hecker said, but he doubts that gamers are any more drawn to drawing penises than, say, kids who scribble on school binders or people who are sitting in bathroom stalls with a writing instrument at hand.

The late game designer Jeff Freeman noticed all this dick-drawing and coined a wonderful phrase: "Time to cock," or, "The amount of time it takes a player to use player-created-content tools to create a penis. Measured in microseconds."

Freeman's phrase is funny. It's also perfect, because it encapsulates the sense of gamers racing to draw these penises within contraints seemingly not made to permit this action. That they do draw them isn't just a marvel of misbehavior but often a milestone of ingenuity.

The online "urban dictionary" traces the "time to cock" notion back to the late-90's massively multiplayer online game Ultima Online. Supposedly someone realized that you could take fish in the game and lay them on the ground in a pattern for others to see. The pattern they chose was a penis.

"Every time we've given people the ability to arrange things of their own-bread, ships-inevitably people want to leave a mark that people recognize," Ultima's lead creator Richard Garriott recently told me when he recently visited our offices in New York. That mark they leave, he said, is "not just something like ‘Killroy was here,' but something that was purposefully shocking or affronting. And if you're going to draw a purposefully affronting and shocking thing, a stick and balls is a pretty good easy basis to create a reaction."

Like Hecker and others in gaming, Garriott doesn't think this tendency to draw penises is unique to gamers. He also doesn't think it always has to be shocking. In come cultures, it's not.

"People's proclivity when brought into a new world to want to mark their new territory most commonly with things with a phallic nature, I actually do think this is something that transcends games," he said. He cited primitive art and its three common variations: beautifully symmetric objects made with skill, such as spear tips; images of big-breasted women or phalluses.

The globe-trotting game developer told me that he and his wife recently made a trip to the nation of Bhutan, country that had been isolated from Western culture for a long time. He recalled them attending a fertility ritual. "It is interesting to note that in all of the country of Bhutan, this is the decoration," he added, handing me a color print-out of the following:

"This is what we found all over the doors of people's houses…

"Painted on the sides of buildings…"

"All through downtown areas is the cult of the ejaculating phallus. No one was shy about it. It wasn't considered obscene in any shape or form. It is clearly something that is universal that transcends games."

I sought scientific expertise to find out why people do this stuff. The response I got from psychiatrists and psychologists amounted to "good question" and "I've never seen a study about it."

Author Tom Hickman's book "God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis" ("a blow-by-blow account") is full of fascinating and uproarious details that even explain where words like "dick" and "cock" come from, but it too fails to fully explain this obsession.

"I am not sure I know the answer to your question but have some suggestions," the bio-psychologist Nigel Barber recently told me over e-mail.

He rattled off some ideas, which I do think help. "Male genitals are covered in most societies even if people wear no other clothes," he offered, "Implication is that genital display is potentially rude or offensive."

And in the animal kingdom? "In squirrel monkeys and other species, the erect penis is part of an aggressive threat display. Mandrills also said to have automimicry of genitals in facial display according to early German ethologist Wolfgang Wickler. Possibly applies to humans?"

Jesse Bering, author of "Why is the Penis Shaped like That?" gamely tossed around some ideas: "First, I'd be willing to bet that nearly all such phallic graffiti were by male hands. I can't imagine girls/women scribbling naughty images of penises to the extent that boys/men seem preoccupied with doing so. If one wants to get a bit Freudian, perhaps it's a way of making public what one isn't allowed to show in public otherwise, a sort of symbolic "unzipping" which may bring some catharsis. It's exhibitionism but not quite exhibitionism, if you catch my drift."

"My first instinct is say that the dick joke never goes out of style — especially for adolescent males," Nando Pelusi told me. He is a contributing editor at Psychology Today and a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavior therapy was willing to take a swing at this too.

Why not?

"Pubertal male primates show their genitalia only after status has been achieved through either brute strength or brains," he said. "In fact genitalia get attacked directly by male primates defending their territory from intruders, because the penis is the locus of competition. Status, for humans and other primates, means access to mates, a very competitive thing."

"In an anonymous context, like most graffiti in the modern world, a drawing of a dick is a proximate way of signaling in a manner that is not easily ignored something that most males wouldn't do publicly (at least from an evolutionarily relevant point of view) because it would get called out or punished."

"Usually, penises get covered or sheathed, otherwise males tend to feel very self-conscious; I think that shame evolved as adaptation to social forces that had real consequences for most of human history where punishment and group cohesion could mean life or death, especially for males establishing their status, so graffiti is usually done secretly and anonymously. Few people are indifferent to an erect penis, because it is either a challenge, or come-on, or declaration of status. Males do most graffiti, and pubertal males are most interested in their newfound obsessions; anything relating to status, making your mark — sometimes literally."

"Males compete for females, and the erect penis is a flag that gets unfurled only when you're very confident — unless it's done with a crayon late at night (what we might call the "pussy's" way out)."

Sound right?

As much as gamers draw penises in games; game developers, officially, don't. We may see breasts a fair amount in games. But penises? It's shocking and rare when a developer puts one in there on purpose.

Nevertheless, everyone's got a good anecdote about penis-drawing in games. Since I started telling some colleagues I was looking into this, they'd regularly send me screenshots and videos of the new penises in new games. Developers would always have a laugh about this, too, even though, yes, companies responsibly try to make sure that penis content isn't shown to innocent eyes.

Here's a final anecdote for you, from Jeremiah Slaczka, creative director at 5TH Cell, where, among other games, they created a kid-friendly DS adventure called Drawn to Life. The game let players draw their own lead character and parts of the game world.

"We did a promotion for Drawn to Life, a flash contest where you use the same drawing tool that's in the DS game to make a hero character," he told me a few months ago. "We'd then include that character in the final game as a template you could choose if you wanted. This is a contest, you have to draw something, then fill out an entry form then submit it to us."

"One third of the submissions were penis characters of varying artistic quality."

"Not only did they draw it—have a laugh and then close the window—they had to fill out a form and then know they'd have to submit the work and their info (probably fake) to win a contest which they knew they'd never win. "

"It's THAT compelling."

His theory?

"It's pushing boundries in its simplest form, like ‘I know I'm not supposed to, but since nothing is stopping me I will. In grade school we did it on paper. [As adults] we don't, because there's no rule stopping us. But inside a game, there is. They know. They want to break the rule."

The original headline for this story was: "The Irrepressible Ingenuity Of People Who Draw Dicks In Video Games"

Continuing with their series on the PS4, this week, Japanese gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu published the second half of their two-part developer interview, with several more Japanese developers sharing their thoughts on Sony's new console.

Once again, the standard 3 questions were posed:

1. What are your impressions of the PlayStation 4?
2. Of the PlayStation 4's specs and functions, what stands out to you?
3. What sort of game would you like to develop utilizing the PlayStation 4's specs and functions?

• Grasshopper Manufacture CEO/Game Designer , Gouichi Suda (Suda 51)

1. — "It seems like the 4th in a line that I'll be having a continued and even longer relationship with."

2. — "The feeling of ‘togetherness' encapsulated in the Share button. In the present day where connectivity between people anytime and anyplace has become customary, I extremely interested in a play environment where the playing field for people to play together is widening many times over."

3. — "A dramatic game. A dramatic Share. A dramatic Cloud. A dramatic architecture. I've chosen a bunch of cool words, but what I want is to make an innovative game that lets players experience how 'dramatic' the PS4 is."

• Nippon Ichi Software CEO, Souhei Niikawa

1. — "My initial impression was ‘Here it is!' It helps to invigorate the business, so new hardware is always welcome."

2. — "To tell the truth, rather than the functions or specs of the PS4, I'm more interested in the timing of its release. The PS3 is still ripe as hardware and can still perform as an active console. I think for users and developers, it's a little soon to release the PS4."

3. — "If we're going to release a game for the PS4, then I'd like to utilize the unique features of the PS4. I'd like Nippon Ichi's first game for the PS4 to be a product that suits the customers' needs the best."

• SEGA Chief Communications Officer, Toshihiro Nagoshi

1. — "I genuinely felt that the specs, namely the high image quality, that enable the development of high quality products, are amazing. I've been in this field for 23 years, and back in the past, the current specs would have been considered a fantasy. But at the same time, there are a lot of hurdles that need to be overcome to expand that fantasy to its limit, so there is a certain tenseness that keeps me from simply being overjoyed. I'm also aware that users want to see that fantasy taken to the limit."

2. — "I'm looking forward to the functions and services that stimulate the ‘user community' and share game enjoyment. The ‘online' component of games has been a standard for a while now, but I'm looking forward to services that utilize that component to dynamically cultivate user connectivity."

3. — "To sum it up in a single phrase, it'd be ‘a great emotional experience shared by many people.' It used to be the norm in all areas that the bigger the numbers, the worse it looks, and the better it looks, the smaller the numbers—the question now will be how to escape that dilemma? I'm going to give it my best."

• Gung Ho Online Entertainment CEO/Executive Producer, Kazuki Morishita

1. — "It's a technological combination worthy of the title of ‘Next Gen.' I think it's a piece of hardware that will maximize its technology ‘without limitation' to allow us to focus on ‘making the most enjoyable games.'"

2. — "I was very impressed with the memory size. I also think it will present a new kind of play that utilizes online connectivity, and feel there's a lot of potential there. I'm also interested in the cross platform capability that lets people connect between the PS4 and the PS Vita or smart phones/tablets."

3. — "I think the PS4 is a console that is made for people of the next generation. I'd like everyone in the Gung Ho group to take up the challenge to create revolutionary next generation game entertainment we've never made before, that utilizes our strengths, like online functions and smart phones, while being more than something that simply ‘has prettier graphics.'"

• SEGA Section Manager, Masayoshi Yokoyama

1. — "Personally, I was expecting a Sony group home appliance substation sort of expansion, so it felt like an evolution of ‘gaming hardware' in a good way. There are a lot of features that tickle my creative fancy as a game developer, so I'm quite excited."

2. — "My primary interest is the controller. I believe the controller is a user's biggest direct interface with [a console's] ‘quality.' With previous game consoles that were released, after a time, what you tend to think of is the tactile sensation of the controller in your hands and the feeling of gameplay. That feeling is stored in your brain along with the memories of fun games. The new controller has the most appealing form and specs I've seen since the original PlayStation, so I'm very excited about it."

3. — "Looking at the new functions, I believe we've truly entered the new age of ‘bi-directional media.' In Japan, TV and other ‘passive' media are still the majority, but with the emergence of the PS4, I think the possibility of new genres like a change from ‘viewed' to ‘movable' TV would be interesting. I'm thinking of such possibilities."

• Spike Chunsoft Senior Producer, Yoshinori Terasawa

1. — "All we've seen is the controller, but I thought that it's evolving. The touch panel on the front seems interesting. That said, I want to see the actual console. It's a new piece of hardware from SCE, so I'm sure it'll be cool and stylish!"

2. — "I'm interested in seeing how keywords like Cloud, Network, Social will merge with games up until now. Also, I always wonder, whenever a new console comes out, just how ‘easy to develop for' it will be."

3. — "In terms of a ‘mandatory network connection,' I have an idea that I've been cultivating for gaming in PC and mobile phone development, so I'd like to utilize it if it could be implemented well, but if not, I wouldn't try to force it. Still, inter-user connectivity will be strengthened as a hardware function of the PS4, so I think new ways of playing will be discovered even for pre-existing stand-alone games. Also, personally... I'd like it if they could make it so that you can't tell when someone is playing games when taking a break from work."

ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com]

In video games, whether they're shooting games or role-playing games, there's always a last boss. And according to convention, the last boss is typically large. Make that, enormous.

However, this isn't a video game character. It's Japanese singer Sachiko Kobayashi. Online in Japan, though, she's dubbed "the last boss". And for good reason.

Kobayashi is an enka singer. While it sounds very different, enka is often compared to American country music or the blues due to the similar sentiments the music evokes. Here, you can listen to Kobayashi sing "Omoide Zake" (おもいで酒) or "Sake Memories". Or, perhaps more relevant, hear her lend her voice to "Pokémon Ondo" (ポケモン音頭), which was used as an ending song for the Pokémon anime. She's truly a great singer—and entertainer.

For over three decades, Kobayashi has appeared on the Kouhaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦), which is an annual New Year's Eve music show in Japan. It was first broadcast on the radio in 1951, and the TV broadcast started in 1953. These days, Kouhaku broadcasts now last over four hours. The show is a very big deal.

Each year, Kobayashi's costumes have gotten bigger and more extravagant. Online in Japan, her Kouhaku getups lend comparisons to video game enemies. Have a look at some of the highlights, and how gamers in Japan reacted to her stage performances.

Due to a business scandal, Kobayashi wasn't invited to this year's Kouhaku. It was the first time in 33 consecutive years that she didn't perform. Hopefully, she'll be back next year and bigger than ever.

おすすめ記事 [natsunana]
ラスボスＶＳラスボスＶＳラスボス。三つ巴の攻防 [愛・こかげ広場２！]
らんらんる～ [FOLTE]
紅白の小林幸子 [IGALOG-MEMO]
紅白落選ｷﾀ [2ch]
小林幸子 [Livedoor]
どうみても、ラスボスにしか見えません [まだ生きてるよ！]
ラスボス [Livedoor]

The wonderful zombie film Shaun of the Dead starts out with a running gag where it's clear that a zombie apocalypse is going on, but the heroes don't notice. As they walk down the street, we can see obscured scenes of undead carnage in the background, but Shaun is too wrapped up in his girlfriend-troubles to see.

Sometimes, a bad video game can feel a bit like that. You're playing, preoccupied with tutorials and introductory cinematic sequences, not yet fully aware of the jankiness that lurks in the shadows. Eventually, the game hits its stride and its crappiness gets right up to your face, groaning and snapping its teeth.

Terminal Reality's new game The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct does not indulge in such ambiguity. Both the zombie apocalypse and the game's utter badness are readily apparent within the first five minutes.

I spent last night playing through the first couple of hours of the first-person survival horror game, which came out yesterday for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Survival Instinct begins with a weird, cordoned-in tutorial that first sends you in pursuit of a false objective, then puts you into an unwinnable fight against a bunch of zombies, or "walkers" in The Walking Dead parlance. You die. Then comes the big reveal—spoiler alert?—that you were in control of the father of well-known characters Daryl and Merle Dixon, and your terrible shooting and running skills got him killed. It's a crap tutorial even among other crap tutorials, and a precursor to all the crap to come.

But first! Comes the credits sequence. Which, if you're a fan of the popular AMC Walking Dead TV show, will feel mighty familiar. Bear McCreary's six-note violin motif and string-section dive-bombs push through an evocative collection of rural imagery accompanied by the names of the actors who appear in the game. It's almost like you're watching a TV show!

And then, back to the game, which is very clearly not a TV show. You take control of Daryl Dixon, the man you'll command for the rest of the game. Side-note on Daryl—it's interesting that the most popular character on the TV show is this guy who has no counterpart in the comics. I like Daryl on the show, too. His low-drama badassery stands in welcome contrast to the whining and carrying on of the majority of the cast, and Norman Reedus manages to inhabit the role with a sharp, morally ambiguous intelligence. And he does seem like the most obvious character on the show to base a video game around, what with his signature crossbow and mysterious backstory.

But even if Daryl deserves to star in his own video game, it shouldn't be this one. I've spent two hours playing Survival Instinct, and those two hours were filled with frustration, boredom, and that peculiar form of bleak hopelessness that accompanies the worst games.

Of course, it's not a huge surprise that Survival Instinct is bad. Its promotional campaign has been festooned with warning signs—in particular the fact that they've been cagey about actually showing the game. The introductory trailers made a far bigger deal about the fact that the game stars Reedus as Daryl and Michael Rooker as his brother, Merle (Wow! Real actors from a TV show! In a video game!) than anything related to the game itself. We were unable to secure an early copy of the game for review, which is never a good sign. And early footage that hit the web was… well, it wasn't promising.

So, yes, the game is a steaming pile and an utter waste of time and money. On the off-chance that this is all new to you, allow me to demonstrate a few of the ways it comes up short.

Survival Instinct looks and moves like an Xbox 360 launch title, with inconsistent performance and flat colors and textures. On PC, it offers the following advanced graphical options:

Here's what the game looks like without light shafts:

And here's what it looks like with them:

Okay then!

Combat in the game is a disaster, plain and simple. In the early stages, you'll have a couple of guns and a knife. One of the guns uses a scope and is essentially useless, as the zombies are never far away enough to require you to use it. The shotgun is more useful, but is so loud that it attracts far more zombies than you could ever kill with your limited ammunition. That leaves you with the knife, which lets you get into a kind of hilarious slap-fight with a zombie until you kill it. As seen here:

Or, you could sneak up behind the biter and stab it in the brain. You will do this a lot. In fact, the ol' "Punch the zombie in the face to stun it, then run around it and stab it in the brain" trick was just about the only trick I used. Well, unless I got caught in...

One of the weirdest elements of Survival Instinct is the "grapple" move, which happens when a zombie gets too close to you. Daryl starts to wrestle with the zombie, and you jam the right trigger and, if you can get the cursor over the zombie's head, Daryl will stab it in the brain. It's kind of a neat idea? Except it fails in execution. The levels I've played usually end with me making a run through a pack of walkers. And if I get even remotely close to one of them, I get sucked into an unending zombie scrum, stabbing zombie after zombie after zombie, almost always until I die.

Here's a video:

Survival Instinct also features a lot of sweat. Sweat? Yes, sweat. Normally in games like this, when you "sprint" for a while, you'll run out of breath. Maybe, if you're playing Far Cry 2, your vision will swim a bit. In Survival Instinct, you'll start to see a weird water effect run down the side of the screen. That is, I have to assume, supposed to be Daryl's sweat, pouring down the camera lens. Weird! And kinda gross!

Survival Instinct is loaded with all kinds of shoddy video-game bullshit. The levels are very hemmed in and the world never feels reactive or real, and as a result the whole thing feels cheap and unfair. You'll carry around sports drinks that replenish your health, but equipping and using them is a nuisance. Checkpointing is a bummer and there's no quicksave option, and at least once the game crashed to desktop and forced me to restart an entire level. The heads-up display is laughably fug, a giant oblong compass in the corner of the screen that points, surprisingly unhelpfully, to your next objective.

Level design is awful—I'd run into a room and more often than not would get cornered and die. Doors are inconsistent—some will open, but most are glued shut. And there are invisible walls everywhere.

Check out this doozy from the end of another early mission:

I'm standing on the car, the dude I'm supposed to get to is right there, and yet I have to run into the glowing green area to end the mission. Man.

When you travel from level to level in the game, you'll have to make some decisions about which route you take. You can take backroads, regular streets, or the highway. Each one uses a certain amount of gas, and each one brings with it a chance of a breakdown. If you run out of gas or break down, you'll have to explore a small side-mission area to find more gas or locate whatever part from your car needs to be replaced.

It's an interesting risk/reward idea that falls flat because no matter what happens, you're going to have to do the same thing: Enter an area, dodge some zombies, grab a thing, and run back to the glowing green square. Basically, these side missions give you more game to play. Because the game is terrible, they feel more like a punishment than a bonus.

You can also manage the survivors in your crew, which is another odd idea that doesn't work but could've maybe been interesting in another game. You can give your companions weapons and even send them out on errands to get gas or food. You can also just tell them to "stay at the car," which, if you follow the TV show, is kind of funny, albeit unintentionally so.

But really, this whole aspect of the game is a mess, and just adds some unclear, unfun micromanaging to deal with in between unfun action missions. I'd love to play a post-apocalyptic resource management/travel game like Oregon Trail, but this ain't it.

There's certainly no opportunity to get attached to your friends, and their deaths are treated about as ignobly as could be. Check out the end of this mission (more spoilers, if you care):

So not only does the cutscene trigger before I touch the green box, it ends with a hilariously anticlimactic death scene. Bang! End-of-mission screen! Ha.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a slipshod, uninspired mess. I have to feel for the developers at Terminal Reality—whatever rushed production schedule or other behind-the-scenes shenanigans must have gone down, no professional game-maker could be happy with this final product.

There are so many superior alternatives: If you've got a hankering to kill some zombies in a southern setting, play Left 4 Dead 2. If you love The Walking Dead and want to spend more time in that world, play Telltale's wonderful adventure game from last year. And if you want to play a tense, terrifying first-person zombie game that relies on smarts and sneaking as much as on firepower (and you own a Wii U), play ZombiU.

I can think of no compelling reason why anyone should play this game. Ugly, flat, boring, aggravating and often broken, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is the purest form of video game garbage. It's utterly unworthy of your time and money.

If you know where to look, you can see the moment Adam Sessler knew he was about to be fired.

It was April, 2012. The longtime TV host had been hearing rumors about his own departure for months. And while taping what would be his last episode of X-Play on G4TV, Sessler saw executives looming in the corner.

The cameras caught it. The snap of his eyes. The sudden turn of his neck.

Minutes later, Adam Sessler left the G4 studio. He never came back.

If you pay any attention to the world of video games, it's hard not to find yourself drawn to the shaven head of Adam Sessler. Famous for his gravelly voice and outspoken views, Sessler has been one of gaming's most public figures since he first appeared on television in 1998. Over the past decade and a half, he's been talking about video games on various channels—ZDTV, then Tech TV, then G4TV—with brutal honesty that has endeared him to tons of gamers.

Last April, G4TV fired Sessler. A few months later, he announced that he had taken a job at Revision3, a company that produces web shows and calls itself "the television network for the Internet generation." His journey has been fascinating and unusual.

In February, when Sessler was in New York for the big PlayStation 4 event, I invited him to stop by Kotaku's offices. Decked out in a brown fedora, a pink scarf, and the traditional garb of all video game professionals—a t-shirt, a blazer, and jeans—the magnanimous TV host sat with me for a couple of hours to talk about his life, his career, and the strange, confusing circumstances behind his departure from G4.

He still doesn't know why they fired him.

Adam Sessler was born on August 29, 1973—the same day of the year as Michael Jackson, he likes to point out—in El Cerrito, California, just outside of Berkeley. He went to private school until he turned 13, and then his parents sent him to El Cerrito High School, which was a bit of cultural shock.

"I grew up with a lot of people who didn't look like me," Sessler said. "I was definitely the scrawny white kid."

People would bully and harass him. One guy, Sessler recalls, used to wear a ring with a Cadillac logo. "They thought it was really funny when they'd punch me in the shoulder just to see what the imprint would look like afterwards," he said. (It looked like a Cadillac logo.)

So, following the high school path of many nerds and future stand-up comics, Sessler decided to take the route of class clown.

"I'd just make up stories to try to convince everybody I was crazy, and then try to become more and more of a comedian," he said. "‘Cause that was a really quick way to not get hit."

It worked. And Sessler stuck with it: in 1991, he entered UCLA hoping to major in theater and acting. "Then I met the other people in the program," he said, "and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go do English."

Sessler went on to study literature. He wrote a lot of papers. And he played... not a lot of video games. "When I was in college, I didn't play as many games, because I was too busy working on the novel I never wrote," Sessler said, although he does recall one semester when his dorm neighbor got a Super Nintendo, along with Super Mario World and Super Street Fighter. For that single semester, Sessler's grades plummeted. (He stayed away from games for the rest of his college years.)

"Games were part of my life," Sessler said. "But I never even considered that there was some sort of career that could happen with that."

In 1995, when Sessler graduated from UCLA, Los Angeles had just suffered a recession, and jobs were scarse. Unable to find work, he flew home to San Francisco. When a friend of a friend called and offered him a job at a local branch of a giant bank, Sessler took it. He had no other options—and money had become a serious problem.

"I'm hired in the credit department, and I have no credit," Sessler said, laughing. At work he'd get calls from Bank of America agents trying to get him to pay off his debts.

"I answered the phone, ‘Credit department, this is Adam,'" he said. "I could tell that they were coming after me to pay my bills, because there'd be this pause of confusion, because they were the credit department."

It was a miserable two-and-a-half years for Sessler, who spent a ton of time worrying that he'd be stuck on the finance career track for life. "When you're young and in your 20s and you have that job, you don't have enough life behind you to understand how much is ahead of you," he now says. He started freaking out, worrying that becoming a banker was his destiny. Even as his co-workers warned him not to stick with a job he hated so much, he thought about giving up. He considered taking accounting classes.

Meanwhile, Sessler moonlighted as an actor on a San Francisco public access show called Chip Weigh Magnet Down. He found out about a new job through the kind of indirect happenstance that is behind so many big breaks. One of his colleagues had a boyfriend, who had a friend who told Sessler about GameSpot. GameSpot—then owned by media conglomerate Ziff Davis—was looking for a host for the video game show they planned to start on the new channel ZDTV.

Sessler was interested, although he hadn't kept up with gaming—"I was young, it was the 90s, I was in San Francisco," he told me. "There's more than enough things to do that don't involve video games." So he brushed up on a bit of history, and decided to memorize two names: Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy VII.

Turns out if you haven't played Final Fantasy VII, it's kind of a tough name to remember. At the audition, when the casting director asked Sessler what games he played, he answered: Resident Evil 2, and...

"I said something that was so not Final Fantasy VII," Sessler laughed. "Everybody's just like ‘Uh...'"

But in what Sessler calls "probably the best coincidence in the world," it turned out the main audition director was also the woman who ran the public access station, and she loved his show. She'd found one sketch, in which Sessler does his best impresion of Irish dancer Michael Flatley, and she thought it was hilarious.

Sessler was standing there, thinking he had no chance after a gaffe like that. One of the directors looks at him and says "Um... they would like you to do the riverdance."

"So I did it," Sessler told me. "That's how I got the job. It pains me, 'cause one of the most common questions I get from young kids is, ‘How do I get a job like yours?' I don't know! This should not have happened."

Sessler's first show aired on July 4, 1998. He and his co-host, Lauren Fielder, would produce and air 30 minutes of television every week. They'd preview games, review games, and bring on GameSpot editors like Jeff Gerstmann (now head of the gaming website Giant Bomb) and Greg Kasavin (now a writer at Bastion creator SuperGiant Games) to talk about what they were doing on the site. It was GameSpot TV, after all.

The setup was strange, Sessler recalls. The hosts spoke in front of a silhouette of a chained link fence, flanked by TV screens full of flames—"It gave the sense that we were giving reviews at a back alley with burning trash cans," Sessler says—and most of what they did just echoed GameSpot's editorial coverage. In the first few years, Sessler guesses they were only reaching something like 10,000 people per episode.

But Sessler started to learn how to produce good television, and he started building up his video game chops with the likes of Banjo Kazooie and Spyro. They snagged some pretty solid guests, too.

"We got this interview with this guy named Gabe Newell," Sessler said, "about this game called Half-Life that we were all excited about, having no idea... It was almost a naive point in time. The big game that we thought was going to be big that year was Sin."

Then there was Columbine.

On April 20, 1999, when two students shot up Columbine High School and murdered 13 people, the country immediately looked for some sort of explanation. For many, the scapegoat was video games: both shooters were fans of games like Doom and Wolfenstein. And it changed the way Sessler and his team approached gaming.

"I got death threats," Sessler said. "I remember one: someone saying if I got raped and murdered in a New York alley, justice would be done. I remember I was eating a burger when I saw that comment—and how that burger just changed its flavor. It's like, ‘Oh, I'm a little more visible than I thought I was.'"

Word came from up high that they couldn't show people shooting people in games anymore—not an easy task if you want to put on a TV show about video games. They could barely cover Grand Theft Auto III, for example. They had to find clever ways to talk about games without talking about one of the biggest elements of gaming.

In late 1999, an entrepreneur named Paul Allen purchased ZDTV. A year later, he gave it a new name: TechTV. Best known as the co-founder of Microsoft, Allen had a new vision for the shows on this network: nine hours of live technology broadcasting, every single day.

GameSpot TV became Extended Play, and there was a ton of turnover as the team tried to master live television. "It was fun, but it cost a lot of money and it really wasn't generating revenue," Sessler said.

Extended Play stuck around until 2003, when, in an attempt to figure out how to make money off shows about video games, TechTV hired a new executive to head up programming, Greg Brannan. Brannan, a friend and mentor of Sessler's who passed away last month, decided to give the show a total makeover. They brought in a new co-host, Morgan Webb. They moved it to a later timeslot. They renamed it X-Play. The goal: cut out the kiddie stuff, and make it feel like a late-night talk show about video games, along the lines of Conan or Leno.

"Now, the ‘people shooting at people' thing, not a problem," Sessler said. "Now we're using language we've never used before, almost trying to hype up the naughtier aspects of games. It wasn't as... ‘Hey kids, games!' It was now"—and he deepened his voice here—"'Hey kids, games!'"

But at this point, Sessler thought the show would be a disaster. They hadn't renewed his contract and he was working on a month by month basis, so every day he worried that he might suddenly lose his job.

"We do the first show—I hated it," Sessler told me. "I just didn't like what we were doing. I thought we were making fools of ourselves."

Then he got a call from one of the producers. "The ratings came in. We blew up. We had blown out almost anything that had happened on the network before," Sessler said. "The best way I can describe it is: we'd get these ratings sheets with certain colors made to describe each range. They had to come up with a new color for us."

Sessler looks fondly back at this era of X-Play, when it felt like they could do no wrong. Even when they got complaints from fans who didn't like their sketches, people were watching the show. They had room to be creative.

But the bliss didn't last very long.

"We're at E3 2003," Sessler said. "Happy days. And then word gets to us that Paul Allen has put TechTV on the block. He doesn't want it anymore: he's losing money. It's like, we're finally doing what we want to do, and that lasts about a year."

By the same time the following year, Sessler and his team knew G4 was taking over. And when G4 took over, they gutted X-Play and laid off a ton of staff.

"It was... I wouldn't say handled well," Sessler said. "Unfortunately, it did not endear us to our new employers at the outset. I think that's something that, had it been handled better, a lot of things may have been different."

X-Play fans weren't too pleased, either. And because the show's set lights had burned into the LCD monitors, imprinting a slight outline of a TechTV logo that you could see when they ran game footage, fans thought the X-Play team was subtly crying for help. (They weren't.)

G4 wanted them to relocate to Los Angeles, too. In late 2004, not long after Sessler met the woman who would go on to become his wife, he had to move down to southern California. She stayed in San Francisco. On weekends, he'd fly out to be with her, then fly back to L.A. on Sundays—or, Mondays, really, because he'd wake up on Sundays and decide that he wanted to sleep in, so he'd reschedule his flight to Monday morning at 6am.

"It was just this kind of anxiety-ridden affair," Sessler said. "I think that's what's made me hate travel."

But Sessler thinks X-Play did their best work during those first couple of years in Los Angeles. "We were kind of not wanting to become G4, so it really fostered a ridiculous amount of creativity."

Then there was the musical. The most lavish production they ever put together, X-Play's musical episode cost over $1 million to shoot—and nobody watched it, Sessler said.

"That's when things start to shift," he said. "We were not failing by any means, but at this point, G4 just can't seem to grow."

They were then moved out of their Santa Monica studio and dumped in the Comcast building, home of the company's other channels, like the pop culture junkies at E!. The groups were interspersed throughout the same office, and the people at E! did not get along very well with the people at G4. Sessler and his team were very loud, for example.

"If you wanna see something cruel, you put a bunch of G4 employees amongst E!," Sessler said. "I had never heard people talk about Britney Spears concerts in earnest, and they had never heard people talk about Spider-Man trailers in earnest."

Suddenly, things felt different. There was more tension. More drama. "It was just the sense that things had gone from whimsical to something a little more serious," Sessler said. "We felt the financial aspect, that this was a business. There was much more at stake now than there had been before."

On top of that, streaming video had just become a thing: services like YouTube were making it possible for anyone to dump trailers or run video reviews at any time. No TV, no networks, no ratings. It felt like something was shifting.

The disadvantages of television became ever-so-clear during E3 of 2006, when X-Play arranged to cover Microsoft's press conference and broadcast it live. There were... issues.

"It didn't occur to me—I don't think it occurred to anybody—that the press conference is gonna keep going into the ad time, and the ad time just had to happen," Sessler told me. "It's suddenly dawning on us as they're showing the Mass Effect trailer, and in the middle of it, commercial. Fans are furious."

To make a bad problem significantly worse, Microsoft's conference was running late, and G4's taping was tied to the East Coast. FCC regulations called for a station identification break at midnight Eastern time, no matter what. They'd have to cut off their broadcast even if it meant cutting off the end of Microsoft's press conference.

The end of Microsoft's 2006 press conference happened to be the reveal trailer for Halo 3.

"And so I'm there watching, and I hear, ‘Adam, you need to send us to break in the middle of this," Sessler said. "I'm like, ‘I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna be the person responsible for denying people exactly what they came here to see.' I start getting really angry. Somebody caught this and it went up on YouTube the next day. You can hear me screaming. It was a disaster."

Over the next few years, X-Play's ratings just got softer and softer. Sessler and his team had to fight very hard for exclusive content—always an unreliable process—and they found it increasingly difficult to get audiences to wait until evening for what they could see online any time for free.

They tried going five days a week. It didn't work. The show became less funny, less interesting. And when some sort of content—say, an exclusive trailer, or a big preview—didn't work for whatever reason, Sessler would freak out.

"That's the thing—that's what's tricky about television, which is very different from the Internet," he said. "You can only have half an hour, and you have to have half an hour. So when someone says, ‘Hey, we can't do this,' that cost to a website is nominal cause nobody's gonna know the difference. The cost to the show is, we have an empty three minutes."

It would take another few years, but the end of G4 seemed inevitable.

On April 19, 2012, Kotaku got a tip from an anonymous source that G4 had no plans to renew Adam Sessler's contract. They were letting him go.

We couldn't verify the news, so we didn't run it. On April 25, we heard the same thing from a second source. We prepared a story and reached out to Sessler's people for confirmation. That afternoon, Sessler's agent sent out a note:

Television personality Adam Sessler and TV network G4 are parting ways, with Adam's last episode as host of G4's "X-Play" airing on the network today, Wednesday, April 25. Adam has been hosting the show since it first aired as ZDTV's "Gamespot TV" in July 1998 and he also served as Editor In Chief of games content at G4. His current projects include starring as himself in the Summer 2012 movie "noobz" and consulting with a film production company on theatrical feature adaptations of video games. Adam intends to stay in front of the camera and continue as a key voice within the games industry. He also sings and is available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

What Sessler didn't say at the time is that he had been hearing rumors of his own departure for almost three months before that. Since the beginning of 2012, he'd be approached by friends and colleagues at G4 and even other companies. "Be careful," they'd tell him. "Something's going around saying you'll be out by April."

"That was really jarring," Sessler told me. "I've been around the block—I like to think that I have thick skin. But that is not something you like to hear—especially ‘cause it was me. I always thought the show would end, and I would end with the show. But now it's just me."

He flew out to the DICE summit in Vegas that February, then found out G4 didn't want him to do anything there. He then found out that they didn't want him to cover GDC that March.

"I was going into work every day and it was like, ‘Is today the day?'" Sessler said. "I confronted people who were saying, ‘We don't know anything.'"

At this point, Sessler was ready to leave—he wasn't happy at G4 anymore, he told me—but he thought the show would end with him. He wanted to leave with dignity, not get ousted from the ship he helped build. He felt like they owed him more than this.

Back to April. Sessler was on set, taping a show. Just a few minutes before it ended, the head of talent told Sessler that she and the vice president of production were coming downstairs to meet in his dressing room, Sessler told me. And suddenly he knew what was about to happen.

His eyes snapped. His head turned.

Some savvy fans noticed it. They realized something strange had happened. But they had no idea they were looking at the moment Adam Sessler knew he was about to be fired.

"I asked [the execs] how it was that this rumor had been going on for months," Sessler said. "I just thought it was disrespectful that they couldn't maintain the professionalism to just keep this thing—you know, it was just humiliating. And then it occurred to me that it was only me, and I was going to be gone. And I walked out of that building and I never returned."

Even today, Sessler doesn't know how the rumors started, or why G4 got rid of him, as he pointed out in one amusing tweet last month.

I reached out to a few different G4 representatives for an explanation, but I never heard back. Maybe it was inevitable—later in 2012, Esquire announced that they had partnered with G4 parent company NBCUniversal to rebrand G4TV as the Esquire Channel. No more video game coverage.

"Jobs end," Sessler said, "but the way it was handled after all the years I put in, and that sense of public humiliation... It's sad, because I have so many fun memories of all the things I did there. But it's such a bitter taste at the very end of it."

Things are better now. Sessler was approached by a few different outlets, but he eventually decided on Revision3, where he got a swanky "executive producer" title and the freedom to talk, and interview, and rant without having to worry about ratings, or air time, or meddling TV executives.

And like the rest of the media world, Sessler is starting to adapt to the future.

"I didn't know the Internet that well," he said. "Now I've started to learn about it."

"What sort of things have you started to learn?" I asked.

"I can just be more personable," he said. "When I'm conducting an interview, I don't have that thing in the back of my head that this is gonna be cut down to three minutes. I like asking the questions that aren't about the game—more about the philosophy of the game, the challenges in trying to make the game the way it was. I can just feel like, getting excited, doing these interviews. It's how I want it to be—not having that time restriction."

More importantly, the Internet gives Sessler and the rest of the crew at Revision3—a talented group of personalities including Max Scoville and Tara Long—the creative freedom to fail. To make stupid decisions.

"Failure's an easy thing on the Internet," Sessler said. "If you put something up and it sucks, you just don't do it again. On TV, you spend so much money, so much resources, you're kinda called to the carpet about that."

For Sessler, it's liberating. He worked in television for 14 years, constrained by that medium's inherent limitations. Even the one big advantage of television—exposure to a national audience—is getting less relevant: Sessler's videos on Rev3 regularly net 60, 80, and even 100 thousand views.

"When you're working in TV, trying to change things is like trying to get an 18-wheeler to do a U-turn on the freeway," Sessler said. "Here, it's like, we can be reactive, and we can be quick."

On April 22, G4 will be no more. But Sessler's still around. And he's ready for whatever's next.

Today, we're always being told that videogames are social. It's only recently that I've been able to take enough of a step back to realise that this is weapons-grade nonsense.

Social gaming isn't a "share" button, or achievements, or single shard servers. Social gaming is getting home and not being able to have sex because your partner wasn't kidding about you invading Kamchatka. Social gaming is an entire match coming down to you looking your best friend in the eye, and deciding if you can trust him.

And as a fundamentally social hobby, it makes sense that co-op board games are popular. Disease-battler Pandemic gets a lot of love, and as an aside, if you play it and feel brave, you should totally move up to either Ghost Stories or Space Alert.

BUT, but, I think there's something even more social than co-op games. I'm talking about team games. I'm talking about working together with your friends, but against another tribe of competitive humans. It's the most fun you can have with your clothes on. If you were seeking to take your clothes off, or will stop at nothing for the most social experience imaginable, I'll just direct you to Tease: The Liberating Game for Couples & Groups.

Where was I? Right, yes. My favourite 5 team board games!

Memoir '44: Operation Overlord

I should save the best for last, but I'm too big a show off.

Memoir '44 is an incredible WW2 strategy game for just 2 players. An agonisingly tense duel over a narrow strip of land, where the orders you can issue—and the game's intimidation factor—is limited by the cards in your hand. Move 2 Units On The Right Flank, or Infantry Assault?

It looks like this:

Memoir '44: Operation Overlord looks like this:

Overlord takes three such games of Memoir and bolts them side by side in one grand battle, where each general is only dimly aware of stuff happening in their peripheral vision. It's impossibly epic, but it gets better.

The full extent of what's happening is overseen by the fourth player on each team, the Commander-In-Chief. This guy's responsible for handing out Memoir '44's signature order cards to each of his generals, but can only speak to one of them every turn. In other words, here's a game where you neglect to talk to your right flank because you're sure he's got it under control, only for an ambush that player had to watch creep up for three turns to suddenly strike.

The entire game's as epic, entertaining but accessible as Memoir '44 itself. A full, six hour game of Overlord might be my favourite board gaming memory in the last two years. Get it bought, get it played.

Ladies & Gentlemen

Course, if you think Overlord is an exhausting battle, Ladies & Gentlemen might literally kill you. Players are divided into Victorian husbands and wives hurriedly assembling outfits for a ball happening in 6 days time. At the end, the most elegantly dressed couple is the winner. Simple!

Not simple. The realistic part of Ladies & Gentlemen is that the ladies and gentlemen are, respectively, playing two entirely different games, and have no idea what the hell their partner is doing at the stock market / shopping arcade. At the end of a brutal day the women hand their desired clothes to the gentlemen, whose monocles immediately pop out into their tea at the prices.

"You need MORE SHOES? These cost £1200!"

"OK £1200 is very reasonable and secondly THAT'S A HAT."

That's an actual quote from the game I played yesterday. Best of all, if you have an odd number of players, the last player is a courtesan who can ask any gentlemen she likes to buy her gifts. If the courtesan is the best dressed lady at the function, she wins along with the gentleman who bought her the most. If she's the worst dressed, she scandalises the wife of the man that bought her the least.

Best game ever!

Rex: Final Days of an Empire

Rex is a weird one, partly because it's about a collective of bizarre aliens scrabbling for control of a planet even as it's still being bombed, but mostly because it doesn't start as a team game.

If you've played the Game of Thrones board game, you'll know what to expect. Too many players, not enough resources, not enough room, but if someone can control just 3 Important locations (such as the space-docks, the power plant, the government building) then they win.

Where things get interesting and potentially awful is when the Temporary Ceasefire card comes up. At that point, any of the 6 players can form alliances of 2 or 3 players, but this ups the victory condition for that team. Alone, a player needs 3 locations. With more players, your alliance needs 4 or 5.

This gives the game a beautiful flexibility. At the flip of card, it could grow from a free-for-all to 3v3. Half an hour later, it might collapse into a 2v2v1v1, as powerful players try and cut the dead weight from their team. Video game designers! Steal this idea. And thank me later.

1812: The Invasion of Canada

A wargame where your friends deserve a medal for even showing up, 1812: The Invasion of Canada is a game about America's famous (not famous) failed invasion of Canada that demands exactly 5 players. But wait! It's awesome!

1812 is a rarity because it's a refined, smart wargame, with all the wooden cubes and historical accuracy you'd expect, but that's just a great deal of fun. The Canada team is made up of players controlling the British Army, Canadian Militia and Native Americans, while team America is the American Army and American Militia.

In theory, everyone carefully discusses a plan, then launches joint assaults and retreats. In practice, someone uses the fact that they have one cube in a province to drag everybody else into a fight, then everyone gets to roll big, chunky dice and you see who lives (usually nobody), who dies (usually the most important people) and who runs away (usually the militia). It's absolutely joyous, with yet another genius mechanic regarding victory conditions.

It's better to defend than attack. But whichever team's controlling more territory when the game ends, wins. Except the game ends only when everybody on one team's managed to play their Ceasefire card, hidden somewhere in their deck. Don't get put off by the board, or the theme. This is tactics with all the absurd tension of Buckaroo.

Galaxy Trucker

We'll end with a secret one. Shh!

Galaxy Trucker is a disaster simulator by my favourite game designer, Vlaada Chvátil. 1-5 players race to build interstellar trucks before taking off in a convoy. 20 minutes later you'll all (probably) arrive at your destination piloting ships that could be anything from sheared clean in half to missing minor details like their entire crew or cargo, at which point you'll do it all again with an even bigger ship.

It's perfect. But at the back of the manual is a tiny little team variant. I didn't think Galaxy Trucker could get any better, but check this out: Players are split into teams of 2, and at intervals throughout the building process you have to sprint around the table to continue building whatever your friend was building.

I've played this exactly once. On the very last round of the game, where you're flying HUGE ships with dozens of crew members, my friend and I finished building and felt confident. We'd made a good showing. Then I went to join the convoy and exactly half of my ship took off, leaving another, entirely unconnected half on the runway.

You know what? I'll be right back. I'm off to organise another game of it right the hell now.

Why Your Board Game Collection Needs Some German-Style Games

Board games are big business now! I've been screaming this for so long that my lungs resemble two teabags flapping in a breeze. Excitingly, this means every week I get a tweet, email or text from someone who's started their board game collection. More »

The 5 (Or So) Board Games To Get Excited About In 2013

Right. For my first ever board game column for Kotaku, the editor-in-chief here suggested I cover the top games coming in 2013. This created an anime-sized bead of sweat on my forehead. More »

While Japanese anime first appeared as early as 1917, it began to flourish in the 1960s with the spread of television throughout Japan. And over the years, its styles have changed.

This isn't new, and it's something Kotaku has touched on previously (here). However, below you can see images from 2ch that catalogue anime styles from the 1960s to this decade. They do an exhaustive job of illustrating the trends and evolutions in Japanese anime.

Yes, the characters depicted in the images are largely female, but many of them were aimed at female viewers. Some were aimed at both males and females, while others were created for decidedly male viewers.

Below, you can see how anime art has evolved, starting with Astro Boy's sister Uran and Princess Sapphire of Princess Knight. Both, of course, were created by Osamu Tezuka, the "Godfather of Anime". The timeline ends with more modern characters, such as Haruhi Suzumiya.

Note that some anime styles, such as Ghibli's or Sazae-san's, hasn't been as impacted as much by various trends.

Click the lower corner of each image to expand to full size.

The 1960s to the early 1980s

The first half of the 1980s to the mid-1990s

The late 1990s to the current decade

ここに来てまたアニメの絵柄が奇形化し出してる気がする [2ch]