We seriously hope Catherine Harwicke pulls inspiration from this art for her Red Riding Hood feature starring Amanda Seyfried.

[via Red Mongoose]

In a new blog post, Lead Writer Ed Stern explains how the writings of BLDGBlog writer and io9 contributor Geoff Manaugh helped to inspire the game's ocean-city setting:

After having spent a lot of time reading Geoff Manaugh's brilliant architecture/futurism/infrastructure website bldblog and researching the sci-fi towers of the Burj Al Arab hotel, the Masdar Initiative, the buildings of Santiago Calatrava, Paolo Soleri's visionary (and unfinished) Arcosanti, Patrick Salsbury's Oceana and the Shimizu Pyramid, it became clear that some sort of seagoing eco-city would give us everything we wanted. It was familiar enough to draw on zeitgeist-ish current concerns, but distant enough in time and space that players wouldn't have seen it before. We'd be building a location that was a constructed, confected place with plenty of geometry suitable for gameplay. Like any city, it would be a place where many stories could occur, but it would also have its own creation story.

The concept art of the Ark city definitely looks amazing — a failed utopia, with major touches of squalor. Pretty much the perfect place to have a few hundred shoot-outs. [Bethesda Blog via VG247]

The truth is, BioShock 2 didn't have to aspire to be anything beyond what the first BioShock was- an interactive piece of art that challenged the very idea of playing video games as an act of societal submission. Trying to repeat that exact same idea would be a waste of time. And while a lot of critics have pointed out that the gamer gets the same environment that the original BioShock has, it become clear almost instantly that 2K Marin was just as focused on creating an original idea as they were on making sure the ice on your drill looks right.

For starters, you can see yourself in this one, kind of. You're one of the first Big Daddies, and although your entire body is covered up by a suit, at least you know who you are. BioShock 2 gives what so many wanted in the first one- a chance to dig deeper into Rapture, the underwater city where the game is set. You learn some history, see new buildings, and that's all well and good. But if the first BioShock used its twist to make players question the act of playing a game in the first place, its sequel focuses on undermining our concept of use and desire.

Games like the BioShocks or Fallout 3 can try, but never will truly be able to create an actual moral quandary for the majority of its users. Games are entrenched in statistics- collect number of X to receive Trophy Y. The initial dilemma BioShock gives you with its Little Sisters is no different. Sure, the first Little Sister can be tough, but by the third one you've figured out your path of action for the game. It'll change the ending, but no one plays a game solely for the end, just like no one reads a mystery novel to figure out whodunnit.

BioShock 2 still has a theme it wants to get across- to look beyond the surface- and thankfully doesn't just rely narrative to make that point clear. Late in the game, you become a Little Sister. It's not for long, but it's crucial in understanding where the 2K team wants to take the series. Other games allow the player to change form, but usually have a tactical advantage- only in wolf form can you jump that ledge, etc. The biggest shift in Bioshock's body change comes in location- you've left the art deco Hell of Rapture and entered a bizarre house, filled with white curtains, rose petals strewn about, sophisticated people discussing beautiful artwork. You're unsure of where you are- a secret part of Rapture Dr. Lamb (the game's antagonist) has kept for herself and loyal followers? A bizarre dystopic home for the Little Sisters? BioShock 2 then pulls the rug out from under you- it's the same old Rapture. Little Sisters, possibly the creepiest part of a creepy game, have been drugged or conditioned to believe the Hell they are forced to live in actually a peaceful paradise. In that moment, the power of game's backstory comes in to full force- these are no longer NPCs whose value can be mathematically determined, they are little girls- they are people- whose lives have been destroyed and horrifically altered. Every day, they are lied to and forced to skip joyously through a Hell they could never stand if their minds worked.

Yes, many things are hidden under the surface in BioShock 2, starting with Rapture. But other games have had other hidden cities. BioShock 2 goes beyond mere NPC interaction, it forces the player to connect with its elements, to understand their lives. It's a powerful leap forward for interactive arts. Rather then simply copy what movies do and hope the same emotional engagement will occur, BioShock 2 makes the case that video games can be art just as much as any other medium. It's not the first game to make this case, but with it's story and gameplay all focusing on a united theme, it's certainly the most convincing.

Superman - 1988

In this side-scrolling Taito title, Superman and his sidekick "Red Superman" team up to defeat alien invaders. Oddly, Superman's main power is not his heat vision but rather his "sonic punch."

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 1989

Konami's side-scrolling adaptation of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's late adolescent amphibious shinobis was an arcade classic - the 1991 version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was borderline impossible (Bebop in Stage 2, rassum frassum).

Batman - 1990

In Atari's Batman, you controlled the Michael Keaton Bruce Wayne as he pummeled the Joker's hooligans. Although Danny Elfman's classic theme is present in the game, Prince's "Batdance" is conspicuously absent.

Captain America and the Avengers - 1991

Thanks to this Data East beat-em-up, the classic Avengers roster in my mind's eye consists of Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and pasty Vision.

Spider-Man: The Video Game - 1991

Sega's take on Marvel's webslinger alternated between platform and beat-em-up modes. The game teamed Spidey up with Namor, the Black Cat, and Hawkeye. If this game was true to the comic book, it would be over in 5 minutes, as Namor would simply chuck Spidey's entire rogues gallery into the ionosphere.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 1991

Konami's time-traveling sequel to the first TMNT arcade title. Its intro song makes the "Ninja Rap" sound like pure doggerel.

X-Men - 1992

If you were sentient during the early 1990s, chances are you (and five of your closest friends) wasted an afternoon at this game's massive cabinet. Not only was Konami's X-Men a hoot to play, it also provided a hilariously idiosyncratic take on Marvel's favorite mutants. For example, Wolverine spoke with an Australian accent, Colossus had a spark attack, Juggernaut carried a bazooka, and Magneto's broken English is the stuff of legends (see: "WELCOME TO DIE," "I AM MAGNETO MASTER OF MAGNET," "KILL YOU YOU ARE DEAD," "COME X-CHICKEN").

Cadillacs And Dinosaurs - 1993

This Capcom beat-em-up is an adaptation of Mark Schultz's 1980s indie title Xenozoic Tales. Its sequel Volvos and Mastodons was nowhere as successful (we kid, we kid).

The Punisher - 1993

Capcom's Punisher title had Frank Castle and Nick Fury delivering some Final Fight-style beatdowns. Weirdly, the Punisher uses his fists most of the game. C'mon! Since when did Frank ever play fair?

Alien Vs. Predator - 1994

Incidentally, the AVP franchise began as a comic book - this team-up first occurred in a 1990 issue of Dark Horse Presents. In Capcom's version of the AVP mythos, aliens land in San Drad, California - Dutch, Lt. Linn Kurosawa, and two Predator warriors must contain the infestation. Sadly, this arcade gem was never ported to consoles.

X-Men Children of The Atom - 1994

The antecedent to the entire Marvel vs. Capcom series, Children of The Atom was noteworthy for great music, a range of X-foes, and Street Fighter 2's Akuma as a hidden character.

Avengers in Galactic Storm - 1995

This Data East fighter covered the 1992 Avengers storyline in which Captain America and company becoming entrenched in the Kree-Shiar war. The game oddly allowed players to choose primarily between 1990s who-cares Avengers (Crystal? Thunderstrike?) and equally obscure Kree fighters. You gotta love the Giant Man special attack, in which Hank Pym's meaty paw grabs your opponent from across the screen.

Marvel Super Heroes - 1995

Respect to Capcom for dusting off D-List villains such as Blackheart and Shuma Gorath for this fighter. And yes, the soundtrack is awesome.

Batman Forever: The Arcade Game - 1996

Acclaim's Final Fight-esque fighter tied in with the less hilarious of the Joel Shumacher Batman flicks. The video is from the Sega Saturn port.

X-Men Vs. Street Fighter - 1996

If your head didn't explode the first time you heard this existed, I'm not sure I want to know you.

Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter - 1997

Essentially Marvel Super Heroes + X-Men Vs. Street Fighter. To quote the immortal Stan Lee, "Nuff said."

Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes - 1998

Capcom rejiggered the VS. formula and added their own characters to the game. If you had ever dreamed of a Mega Man versus Venom brawl, this game answered your prayers.

Spawn: In the Demon's Hand - 2000

A Spawn game from Capcom...who'd of thunk? Anyway, the 3D game was mission-based and required the player to embark on all sorts of extreme 1990s anti-hero missions. The gameplay here is from the Dreamcast version.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes - 2000

This game sported over 56 characters, but everyone only seems to play as the Sentinel, Magneto, or Cable in tournaments. The footage is from a console version.

Though there have been many movie and cartoon versions of Carroll's mid-19th century novel of nonsense, it seems to me that perhaps the best adaptations and transformations of it didn't break until the mid-20th century with Jefferson Airplane's iconic song "White Rabbit." This song is, among other things, a terrific entry in the fantasy genre. It evokes the foolish/horrific mood that permeates Carroll's original tale, and updates the story to reflect the 1960s countercultural fascination with psychedelics.

Just as they do today, neo-Victorian fashions flourished during the 1960s in America - especially if those fashions had an Old West flair. Hippies in America were fleeing West to California, and many bands that emerged from the Haight Ashbury scene referenced that idea with 19th century "cowboys and Indians" garb.

I would call this kind of imagery, which you can see here in album cover art for Haight Ashbury bands The Charlatans and Quicksilver Messenger Service, among the first stirrings of steampunk sensibilities in the United States. Of course we could argue for a year about what steampunk means, so let me say that I'm borrowing heavily from the definitions of steampunk as an artistic movement in Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's Steampunk anthology.

In that anthology, the VanderMeers refer to steampunk as "dark pseudo-Victorian fun." They emphasize the DiY artistic styles that have given rise to steampunk culture and aesthetics, as well as steampunk literature.

Many authors, including those in the VanderMeers' anthology, cite Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft, and H.G. Wells' work as obvious precursors to today's massive crop of steampunk novels. And pulp historian Jess Nevins says the dynamo-driven, monstery tales of today have their origins in the "Edisonade," a subgenre of tales from the nineteenth century where an intrepid inventor makes a steampunk gadget and has an adventure with it.

So where does Alice's Adventures In Wonderland come into all this? The novel is certainly not a gadgety Edisonade, nor does it have the epic scope of a Jules Verne adventure. And yet its vision of a Victorian girl gone mad among even madder humanoids, her body an uncontrollable mass of growing and shrinking limbs, is as much a part of the steampunk tradition as any manly adventurer with his rational machine.

Instead of the madness of engineering and pistons, Carroll's novel explored the glorious madness of human psychology. As his protagonist Alice moves from dreamy encounter to dreamy encounter, watching nursery rhymes coming to life and fighting bloodthirsty monarchs made of cards, we witness something that for the Victorians was just as stunning as a giant dynamo. Psychiatry was in its infancy in the 19th century, and this brave new science suggested there was a method in madness. The muddle of our dreams might illuminate the truth about human consciousness; the murmurings of madwomen could shed light on how so-called sane people think.

Carroll, a lifelong fan of wordplay and logic games, reflected a Victorian fascination with the inner workings of the human mind. Especially when it was at its most nonsensical. One of the other truly great adaptations of Carroll's work, the 21st century videogame Alice from American McGee, foregrounds this idea. In that game, which takes place many years after the events of Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass, Alice has been incarcerated in an insane asylum for nearly a decade. She escapes back to a very dark version of Wonderland when the white rabbit comes asking for help. Here's an unofficial teaser for the Alice videogame sequel, due out next year, which captures the madness.

This is precisely the kind of "dark pseudo-Victorian fun" that steampunk celebrates.

Another way Carroll's novel has influenced steampunk is through the often-imitated original drawings of John Tenniel. The image of Alice with that trippy caterpillar, which appears in the Jefferson Airplane song as well as countless works of concept art, has become visual shorthand for glorious Victorian madness. Tenniel-inspired garb is not uncommon among steampunks and steamgoths.


To return to the question I raised earlier: Why has Alice's Adventures In Wonderland inspired so many artistic rebels, including steampunks? Perhaps because she, unlike the stalwart inventors of the Edisonades, embodies the spirit of contrariness. And her adventures unmask the industrious, logical Victorian era for what it also was: A time of insanity and nonsense; a time of absurd power executed arbitrarily over the helpless. ("Off with her head!")

Carroll's novel belongs at the heart of the steampunk tradition because it represents a perfect wedding of escapism and protest. And that, in the end, could sum up steampunk too.

Steampunk caterpillar and windup Alice by Guillaume Dubois.

Alice vs. snails from concept art for the videogame Alice via American McGee.

Alice and Mad Hatter by Jasmine Beckett-Griffith

Lunopolis
The little faux-documentary Lunopolis, which received great reviews from the Boston scifi festival, blows the lid off the secret moon city Lunopolis. It's shot like a real documentary, History Channel style (None of this Blair Witch shaky cam nonsense), but it appears as if it starts to unravel in the end. Either way, you've got our attention Lunopolis, can't wait to see more.

Dead Rising
Dead Rising, the zombie slaying video game which is getting a NEW Americanized version sometime this year, already has a live action film. Just like the game, it's about killing zombies. Sure it's set in a different reality where people have been separated by quarantine zones, but honestly, it's just about killing zombies. Get this: The film is only being released of Xbox LIVE. So ha, PS3. Check out the official site for more information.

Devil's Playground
Quiet Earth stumbled upon a few promo videos form the UK's Devil's Playground, which appears to be another rage virus film. And since we're sluts for plagues, bring it on.

Synopsis:

London: The not too distant future. Newgen Industries, a leading pharmaceutical company company, is trying to placate a media uproar. Its new "legal performance enhancer", RAK-295, has met with spectacular failure during testing, causing severe physical and allergic reactions in all 30,000 of its test subjects...

Parallel Lines
Greg Fay, Jake Scott, Johnny Hardstaff, Carl Erik Rinsch [who almost ended up directing the new Aliens feature], and Hi-Sim all teamed up with The Ridley Scott Associates to make a collection of short films, titled Parallel Lines, which will premiere April 8th 2010. The whole thing was apparently inspired by Adam Bergs' Carousel short from last year, which was insanely popular. Looks like the advertisers are trying to recapture that magic. And if that means giving indie and foreign filmmakers a chance to stand out, wonderful. Thanks to Slashfilm for pointing this out.

Parallel Lines Trailer

Adam Berg's Carousel

Bullet Face
A DEA gets thrown into a Tijuana prison. While trapped in jail, a drug lord start peddling his fancy new DNA-altering drug that's made from human spinal fluid. In order to get this new hot drug, you have to set up a tap in the back of some unfortunate victim, but that doesn't stop the street demand, and soon everyone is hooked. Like all good "cop in jail" films, the government needs help from the DEA to stop this dangerous spinal fluid trafficking. So they give her a 60 hour get out of jail free card. So she can kick some ass, and drink some spine juice. This, my friends is Bullet Face.

Check out the trailer for Albert Pyun's red-eyed drug film Bullet Face, via Quiet Earth.

Bulletface Trailer - HD 1280p version - Unrated from Albert Pyun on Vimeo.

Omega
Twitch pointed out the trailer for a stop motion short in which trash-like beings flop about on a sun-burned planet. All the little creatures are really delightful, we can't wait to see how they interact in the full short.

OMEGA - TEASER TRAILER from Andy Goralczyk on Vimeo.

When Lynch Met Lucas
This short was filmed entirely on an iphone using imotion by Sascha Ciezata. It's nothing new, if you've ever heard the story of how Lynch met Lucas, but all in all the short is pretty funny and made me laugh. So I thought I'd share it with you kind folk.

When Lynch Met Lucas from Sascha Ciezata on Vimeo.

In a recent TV interview, Bay explained that the origins of Transformers 3 lay in his sense of responsibility to his friends, AKA Paramount Pictures:

The true story is we went to Vegas to celebrate ['Revenge of the Fallen'] crossing the $400 million mark domestic. I said I'm excited to do my small little movie. They said, well we're here to talk about that. I've become friends with these guys that run Paramount and they [told me,] 'We're going to get fired if we don't have a 2011 franchise,' so I'm like you can't let these guys down." The economy's been so rough, it's kind of important. When you say yes to movie like this you automatically give 3000 people jobs. 1000 for the toys. 2000 for the filmmaking. I'm going to put [the small film] on hold and do it right after ['Transformers 3'].

We're sure that the massive payday that Bay will undoubtedly make from the third installment didn't hurt that much either, but somehow, we're not sure that plays so well into this particular narrative.

Meanwhile, if you're jonesing for new Transformers before 2011's new movie (which may or may not be in 3D; Bay said that testing is currently taking place to see how it'd look), there's always the upcoming tie-in videogame, Transformers: War For Cybertron, which lets you pretend to be either an Autobot or Decepticon before they decide that Earth is where it's at. Here's the latest trailer:

'Transformers 3' Director Michael Bay Testing 3-D, Promises 'New Characters,' 'A Lot Of Twists' [MTV Movies Blog]

IESB is reporting that Kristen Stewart was approached for the role of Lara Croft. We understand trying to get a "hot" star with a fan following, but this is insanity. Lara Croft does not spend her time biting her lip and making sad faces.

So here are the actresses, or Hollywood people, that producer Dan Lin should be approaching, now that Megan Fox isn't going anywhere near this live action adaptation.

Amanda Seyfried

Why She's A Kill Shot: We know she can kick some ass thanks to Jennifer's Body, she's the "hot newness" on the block right now, and she's a good actress.

Why This Tomb Raider Is Cursed: Might be a bit too young, plus there's that whole accent issue.

Minka Kelly
Why She's A Kill Shot: Young, slightly unknown, she'd be a great and cheap choice as a break-out star. Plus she'd probably welcome the part as it's very different from her current characters.

Why This Tomb Raider Is Cursed: Age — she's still playing 18-year-olds.

Kristin Kreuk

Why She's A Kill Shot: Already has a rabid fan base, can act and kick ass at the same time.

Why This Tomb Raider Is Cursed: Might be a dated decision, since KK may have already peaked.

Sasha Gray

Why She's A Kill Shot: She's got the look, and the brand new acting rep, thanks to her Steven Soderbergh-directed debut.

Why This Tomb Raider Is Cursed: But will she alienate audiences?

Kim Kardashian

Why She's A Kill Shot: "Reasons"

Why This Tomb Raider Is Dead: We're not sure if she can act — or talk in a non baby-doll voice, let alone talk in an English accent. But we have a feeling no one would care.

Not that we're complaining, but we've found that live action adaptations always seem to make their characters quite a bit more conservative than their video-game counterparts. Not the case for Tekken, except for maybe Christie Montiero, the real life characters are predominately much less conservative than their CG personas.

Check out the side-by-side comparisons. We have to say, after viewing the trailer and these pictures, we're getting pretty excited for the B-List fight-fest Tekken. At the very least, it looks much better than Mortal Kombat and Chun-Li. If just needs more Panda fighters and we're sold.

[via Tekken Site and Creative Uncut]

Like similar projects The Ani-Matrix and Batman: Gotham Knight, Halo Legends lets various Japanese animation houses take a swing at concepts and characters from the video-game universe to create an anthology of shorts and, also like the earlier projects, the results are definitely mixed. Only problem is, the range goes from "Okay" to "Wait, what was that?"; there's almost nothing here that's really worthy of the Halo reputation.

Visually, it's never less than interesting, and occasionally borders on brilliant; Studio 4°C's work on "Origins" is amazing, especially in the first chapter; it's beautifully clean, in contrast to the subject matter it's tackling, and dissonance really works in its favor. Less successful are Production I.G's impressionistic "The Duel", which looks muddy, unfinished and Photoshop-filtered instead of the painterly feel I presume was intended, and Casio Entertainment's CGI "The Package," which may look like the game, but lacks the freshness of Clone Wars, but the whole thing is never boring to watch, as much as it may occasionally be boring to pay attention to.

Most of the problem is the writing; nothing manages to convey anything approaching an appropriate feeling of scale or oppression - Either the vignettes are too small ("The Duel", "Homecoming" and "The Babysitter" in particular, focus on smaller interpersonal relationships within the larger framework, and weirdly enough, reduce the larger framework by doing so - Having maybe one or two of these stories on the disc would be fine, but three out of eight began to feel repetitive) or too large, reducing what should be epic into standard-issue SF (the "Origins" two-parter, and "The Package"). None of the stories manage to make Halo seem like anything more than a generic Space War story - In fact, "The Package" and, to a lesser extent, the best of the shorts "Prototype", both feel very much like episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars at times - and that feeling, the let-down of missed opportunities, permeates the entire viewing experience. It's not that Halo Legends is bad, ultimately, just that it's not as good as it should be.

Halo Legends is available now on DVD, BluRay and as digital download.

Spoilers ahead...

We were lucky enough to sit down with Hudson, Project Director for Mass Effect 2 (and former producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic) for half an hour, one-on-one, to talk about the new game. He told us about team-building, missions on alien worlds, and the new Blade Runner-inspired space station. (For more coverage of Mass Effect 2, check out the motherlode over at our sister site, Kotaku.)

So we understand that Shepard dies at the very beginning of Mass Effect 2, but is brought back? But then at the end of the second game, Shepard can die in a way that's permanent, and you can't bring your version of Shepard back in Mass Effect 3. What's the difference between those two deaths?

I don't want to give away too much about the beginning and exactly how it happens, but there's some debate as to whether Shepard actually is technically dead, or just in limbo or near death. But obviously Shepard is very badly injured or mortally inured, and Cerberus brings him back from either a state of death or near death. But what you experience in the ending is just the kind of thing where there's nothing to bring back. It's a lot more definitive.

There's not even a scrap left.

That's right.

So you've said that the players will go into the last act knowing if Shepard's mission is likely to be a suicide mission or not. And that this mission is linked to the fate of the human race. Does the question of whether Shepard lives or dies tie in with whether the human race lives or dies?

I think it's more about the idea that the fate of humanity is tied in with this overall fight, which is what the trilogy story is about, and that if you want to finish that fight, then that story is told as we go into Mass Effect 3. And that's why you want to keep your character around. If you die in Mass Effect 2, then it's like you have done your part as this particular character, but it's up to the survivors to try and find a way. But you will never know how that story ends.

So let's talk about Cerberus, the organization that brings Shepard back from the dead, or from near death, at the start of the game. I understand its leader, the Illusive Man (Martin Sheen), is introduced in a tie-in novel where he's a bad guy. And Cerberus is a xenophobic, human-supremacist organization, right? So why is Shepard joining up with them?

I guess the experience of Mass Effect, in general, is about finding your own way of doing the right thing. It's always about doing what has to be done, but how do you go about it? And finding the agonizing choices, making scarifices between the different ways you can go about it. So it's not really about being good or evil, and then Cerberus ties in with that really well, because if ultimately the goal is to preserve life in the universe, Cerberus is pro-human, they will do whatever it requires. So they're good in that respect, but they re going to be brutal in their methods. So the Illusive Man really embodies that, and the fact that Cerberus was behind bringing back Shepard... that just makes it a little bit more that you're to listen to what they have to say. But at the same time, it's the fact that they have intelligence [about the threat to humanity], they have that next piece of information that you need. They may not even share everything they have. But you know the next piece of information they have, is the next thing you would want to investigate anyway. But it's a real back and forth, because you don't know if you want to trust them or not.

And it seems like trust issues are a huge theme in this new game in general, right? Shepard has to assemble a new squad to go after the missing humans, and has to earn their trust. And if you don't do a good enough job of ensuring their loyalty, then the squad members may betray you. How does the game measure the level of trust and loyalty among squad members?

Loyalty is a big enough aspect of the game that throughout the course of the game, you're really building up this team. You're making sure they're equipped, and making sure they're loyal, and building up your ship, and all of this is in preparation for final mission.

Because loyalty is such a big part of it, we actually do track whose loyalty you've earned. There's kind of a status grid. You can see which characters you've recruited, and which ones are loyal to you. But the thing that you do to gain their loyalty is different for every character, and it's part of their relationships with you. You might recruit a certain character that you may not know what they're about yet, but over the course of the game you're developing a relationship with them and talking to them... and they'll reveal whatever it is their unfinished business is, and the thing that they need to do before they can commit to your agenda. And once you learn what that is, it opens a mission where you go off and help them. So because it really is their story, it gives us the opportunity to do two things. One of them is that it allows you to tell interesting and more personal stories than you otherwise would. You're learning about the Mass Effect Universe and you're learning about the characters. And the other thing it does, is it allows all of these loyalty missions to tie back into the core story... it's a very personal story with the character, but that personal story earns their loyalty, and that's why they'll perform better for you in the final mission.

So you've mentioned that all of the squad members from the first game turn up in the new game, and Shepard tries to recruit them for this mission. Some of them are interested, others aren't. Is this like a Blues Brothers thing?

I'll have to watch that again. Don't they drive a car through a mall in that? That'll be in Mass Effect 3.

I think a lot of what we try to do is really make use of the characters people love from the first game, so we bring them back. But we also want to bring back the experience of discovering new people and new places. That's why we introduce a lot of new characters. And it's also the fact that in the end, these people are going to be going on a suicide mission with you, and it's quite likely that a lot of them are going to be killed. A lot of people are going to emerge from Mass Effect 2 with a lot of dead squad members, and it's actually very hard to keep your entire squad alive. That's one of the reasons why we have a bigger team, 10 characters instead of six. Some of the characters play an important story role but are not recruitable [for the squad].

Right. And I read one thing online where you said love interests in the game are not recruitable for this mission. Why is that?

The Mass Effect 1 love interests aren't. So that's Liara, Kaiden and Ashley. They're in the story but they don't join the team for that reason. Some people are worried that we don't care about those characters, but it's actually the opposite. We care about them so much that we want to make sure they survive this suicide mission.

So Shepard is on a mission to save humans, on behalf of a human supremacist organization. But it seems like his new squad is once again going to include a number of alien members. What's up with that? What can you tell us about these new characters?

A good portion of [the squad members] are alien. I think we were more free to do aliens [this time] because the first game was a little bit of an experiment, to see if we could imbue an alien, with very different anatomy, with very human emotion. So that's something we were very cautious about. But it succeeded so well that we got feedback that people wanted romance options with our alien characters. So they obviously were hitting a very compelling emotional level. We've got some more aliens. We've got Grunt, who's a krogan like Wrex was, Mordin is a Salarian, Thane is a new species. We introduced Thane with the goal of creating a new alien species for you to learn about, but also wanted a potential love interest. [So we designed] a new alien who had to be aesthetically pleasing, but also in the spirit of his character who is a stealthy cool assassin.

You've mentioned there'll be more alien love scenes in this game.

There will always be alien love scenes.

I know the first game caused some controversy and got banned in Singapore.

Actually, in Singapore, I'm guessing they were reacting to online rumors. There was initially a ban that was immediately lifted. And the stuff with Fox News... None of those people had actually seen what was in the game. What we do respond to is people who play our games is give us their feedback. And everyone who's played it, all the feedback we've had has been really positive about the role of the love interests. We look at it as making a PG-13 acition movie. There's action-adventure, a really cool story, witty dialogue, and there's also a love interest because it helps to get a more human emotional interest in why you're doing things in the story.

How do movies like Avatar influence the way you portray romance with aliens?

I think people who play Mass Effect games... in a way there's something there that no movie can really rival. When you personally chose a character you want to talk to. Especially in Mass Effect 2, when you choose a character out of a larger group. In Mass Effect 1 you have one or two options [of who to talk to], but in Mass Effect 2 you have a few characters you can talk to and several of them can turn into romantic relationship. So in the fact that you choose a character to interact with, and there's a back and forth there. You have to keep interacting with a character. It's not something you press a button [and a romance happens]. It's something you play over 20 or 30 hours, and late in that story is the development of this relationship into a romance. It's the little surprises and the flirting and the twists and turns that you, in a tactile way, are developing.

We love the idea that the weapons in the game have heat sinks this time around. How does that work?

We wanted to capture two things with the combat in Mass Effect 2, in terms of the weapons. One of them was... being really precise and really fluid, what you expect from the best shooters in the world. We also wanted to add some of the tension you get from consideration of ammo and rounds and whatever... We've got location-based damage now, we've got headshots. You can shoot [the enemy]'s arm off, you can shoot in the knee. If you've got infinite rounds, why not just spray the enemy? But if you've got one round left on your sniper rifle, you want to go for a head shot, so there's a reward for making that happen. So it just adds a really wonderful tension.

But we wanted to keep it in line with the fiction of Mass Effect, in Mass Effect 1, you're shooting these projectiles at near light speed, but to do that it generates a tremendous amount of heat. So you have to control the heat of your weapon. If you overheat, you're stuck with an overheated weapon for 10 seconds in the middle of a fight, which is not that fun. So we converted that [in the new game], so instead of overheating a weapon, you overheat a heat sink, and prior to that happening, you can pop out your heat sink and put in a new one and then you're back in the fight. It ends up being in line with the fiction, but allows us to have that tension of having ammo. The other good thing about it is, it's not universal. In games that have universal ammo, if you run out of ammo in one weapon, then all your weapons are gone. In this game, each weapon still takes heat sinks, they're kind of loaded with their own set of heat sinks... Therefore, if you're running around with your favorite sniper rifle and you run out, you can still switch to your assault rifle, or whatever it is you're carrying. It causes you to realize, "Whoa, I'm a little bit more up against the wall here because I'm out of rounds with my favorite weapon. So I'll switch to this and switch my tactics." It also causes you to explore other weapons.

You told our sister Kotaku that Mass Effect keeps the character-focused storyline, role-playing and scifi aspects, but plays up the shooter aspects of the game more, to appeal to people who like Gears Of War or Modern Warfare. How does that affect the storytelling?

I think the assumption is that there's a sliding spectrum between RPG and shooter. But the reality is, you think about four quadrants of a graph... In a Mass Effect game, you've got the quadrant that's combat, third-person shooter combat. But then you've also got the quadrant that's progression of character and developing the skills and so on. And the quadrant of exploring or going off into space. And then of course you've got this non-linear story. So we don't have to move a slider over from RPG to shooter... We just to look at that [third-person shooter] part of the game and make sure if you've been playing Gears Of War, if you've been playing Modern Warfare, and then you jump in and you experience the shooter combat in Mass Effect 2, you can say this is up there with those other games. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still one of the four key pillars, and the balance doesn't change.

Arguably, every game has story, but to me, if something isn't interactive, if you can't change it, then it's not really there [as part of the game] It's not really a gameplay component if the story is just there. Whereas if the story is a gameplay component, then that is a pillar of the game, which it is in Mass Effect 2. You're playing the story. You're saying "I want the story to go this way, or I want things to change that way."

Producer Adrien Cho told the Guardian that one of the worlds you visit in Mass Effect 2 is a space station called Omega, which is designed to resemble a 1980s Ridley Scott movie, especially Blade Runner. Can you tell me more about that?

We always have the risk of artist's block or something. When we start a new game we have to come up with a new idea for an amazing location. That's usually the starting point. We go to a place, a new station, and it has to be amazing. And that's hard. You look at a blank page and have to do that. So one of the directions I gave was that we have the Citadel, the Citadel is very Mass Effect, and this is the opposite of the Citadel. And so you can think a lot of what it is and what it's made of, in Citadel terms. So the Citadel is very horizontal. It's very flat and city-like. Whereas Omega is very much like a tower. It's very vertical. You can look out and see forever up, and forever down. The Citadel is very sleek and blue, with cool colors, it's very idyllic. Omega is very industrial, it's warm colors, it's fiery, it's crime and sin and gangs. There's absolutely no law. It's all the fun of taking you to a place that's like the Citadel, in that it's fun and you know what to expect from it. And yet it's the absolute opposite.

You've mentioned this game will have richer and more diverse Uncharted World locations. Does that mean the planetary exploration this time around is going to be more in depth, with more variety of environments?

What we did is, we looked at the Uncharted Worlds from the last game — [we received] a lot of feedback that people wanted to see them improved. I don't think people saw them as what they were, as a value add. They saw it as part of the main game, and they wanted to have the same kind of richness as the main game, and so we thought well... one thought was, do we need them? Is that part of the Mass Effect experience? Maybe people just don't want them. We listen to every bit of feedback we get, but we also interpret it and try and figure out what's really behind it. What we thought was really behind it was that... people [actually] loved that fantasy as part of the Mass Effect experience. You've got a ship. You should be able to go across the galaxy and find a star and a planet and something to do there. So we kind of redesigned our approach to it, so we could capture that fantasy a lot better. So we took all the mundane mining and stuff like that, and we put that into a new orbital minigame, that's actually really cool and addictive. And so you get that resource-gathering. And that's actually how you find specific locations on a planet, and find that point where you can land.

And that opens up what we call an N-7 mission. You can send down space probes and recover certain things... but an N7 mission is where only Shepard can go down and investigate, and we've designed every N-7 mission with the idea that it has to be something special. It has to be something that gives you a unique story experience or gameplay experience you can't get anywhere else. By designing them with that idea, it means when you go to planets, they actually do have that fantasy of the wonderful things you discover out in space.

We read that powers will be more class-based this time around – will there be more stuff that an Adept or an Engineer can do that will further the story in ways other classes couldn't?

The classes are more varied. They are more distinct. Whereas before, we had a long list of potential skills that everyone can get, and some of the classes had some that others didn't. But now it is very much that each class has a set of skills that are very unique. Some of them are shared, but a lot of them are unique to that class. So it does create a very different experience.

So in this game, an insectoid race called the Collectors turn out to be involved with the missing humans. Are they the main antagonist this time around, or just a sideshow?

That's part of the mystery that Shepard has to figure out, because humans are going missing and being abducted all over the galaxy, and the collectors are obviously behind it. But to what degree and why and how it ties in with the overall threat of the Reapers, that's [the larger mystery].

How does an insectoid race like the Collectors behave differently than the Geth?

I think the fact that the Geth were machine-like [meant] there was a little more order to the way they moved and they way they operated. There is a scarier aspect to the Collectors, because they're more insect-like. The way they operate, they way they abduct humans, is more creepy. It involves hives... and is just a lot scarier to deal with. And ultimately insects, it's so much harder to map on an emotional level — even compared to the Geth, who always seemed benevolent in some way. The Collectors are much more evil.

We're still not 100% sold on fighting games turned into movies - what's the plot? But we have a small amount of hope for the Tekken film, especially since Luke Goss is in it, playing Steve Fox. Here's the official synopsis:

The year is 2039. World Wars have destroyed much of civilization as we know it. The remaining territories are no longer run by governments, but by corporations, the mightiest of which is Tekken.

In order to keep the masses down, Tekken sponsors the Iron Fist Tournament in which fighters compete to the death for ultimate glory and receive a lifetime of stardom and wealth.

We've already shown you the pages from the Legion movie comic book. Now here's the motion-comic trailer. Sadly there's no Watchmen-esque man/woman voice.

But if that's not enough God on human violence to fill your holiday lust, play the impossibly hard Legion computer game. In the game you're Paul Bettany, the mad-as-hell fallen angel. Armed with a shotgun, you must mow down the demon possessed masses and stop God from wiping out humanity's only hope, a pregnant waitress. Click on the picture to link to the site. Merry Christmas!

[Comic via Apple]]

[USA Today]

Star Trek Online caused some consternation when they announced:

Klingon Captains have the same number of skills available as their Federation counterparts, including the same professions. Your Klingon Captain can be a Science, Engineering or Tactical officer. However, they must advance through PvP, as they will not have access to the same amount of player-vs.-environment content as Federation players at launch.

That's not to say Klingons won't be a robust faction. While they are PvP-focused, PvP in Star Trek Online is something we designed from the ground up to be a viable advancement path, meaning both Klingon and Federation players can reach a rank of Admiral solely through PvP. Players can engage in team vs. team, Federation vs. Klingon, Klingon vs. Klingon and Federation vs. Federation combat. What's more, certain PvP maps will have PvE objectives over which opposing players can struggle.

Cryptic exec Jack Emmert has this to say to IGN about the unfortunate situation:

The fact is, people make their buying decisions early and he felt it was important to have Klingons in the game, even if they were not as deep as everyone would like, from day one. "If I sit back and wait for it to be perfect, frankly people aren't going to wait around for it," he added.

Bottom line, too bad. The Klingon are going to be boring, or no Star Trek Online. Still the Klingons in the game will have their own ships, bridge officers and territory, if that helps at all.

[via IGN]

This trailer was released at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, revealing that there will be a Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, canon be damned...

How the hell is he still alive? There were two options at the end of the game: death, or life as a half-robot half-creature thing, Sith Stalker, pictured here....

Not that we are complaining, Sam Witwer's Secret Apprentice rage and scowl are the things dreams are made of 00 but no thanks to the robot head and claw hands. This just doesn't work, or make sense. We liked the dark endings that tied up this character's fate with existing canon. Please do explain, LucasArts. More Force Unleashed concept art here.

But other spacey gaming news, we've got a new trailer from Star Trek Online, which also announced today that Zachary Quinto would be lending the game his voice! Here's the new Klingon-heavy trailer:

[GameTrailersVia]

We mentioned Emotiv nearly two years ago when Brian Crecente, editor of our sister site Kotaku, had a less than favorable interaction with the device (and we also suggested the technology could have some naughtier implications). However, Emotiv now believes that its neurosensor helmet, the Emotiv EPOC, is consumer-ready. The EPOC will be available to consumers in the US on December 21, and will retail for $299.

The EPOC is essentially a home EEG device, using electrodes to detect the brain's electrical activity. Earlier videos of people using the EPOC indicated that gameplay wasn't terribly smooth, so we'll have to wait and see if the consumer version offers satisfying gameplay, or just a neat bit of novelty. Below is a video of someone trying out the consumer version of the Emotiv EPOC that offers a good look at the device (unfortunately, the audio cuts out halfway through):

Nam Do, the founder of Emotiv, also plans to put this technology to other uses, such as focus testing. Rumor has it that he'll be working on focus testing James Cameron's Avatar to gauge if what audience members say about the movie matches up to what their brains are telling us.

Future tech: Interview with Emotiv co-founder Nam Do, and the science behind mind control [PC Magazine via Slashdot]

Co-written by lead Mass Effect game writer Mac Walters and Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic's John Jackson Miller, with art from Star Wars: Legacy's Omar Francia, the comic "reveals an essential moment in the life of Commander Shepard," according to publisher Dark Horse Comics:

The eagerly anticipated sequel to the blockbuster science-fiction epic that IGN.com named the #1 Xbox 360 game of all time, Mass Effect 2 begins with the disappearance of Commander Shepard. The story of what happens next — exclusive to these comics — will have the commander's companion Dr. Liara T'Soni undertake a deadly mission of extraordinary importance in the Milky Way's lawless Terminus Systems.

Mass Effect: Redemption is released January 6th, ahead of the January 26th release of the videogame.

Moss, who also created a clever series of black and red movie posters, and recently designed the brilliant, Hitchcockian Lost Locke poster, drew up this handy survival guide for the A Life Well Wasted podcast. This, and other posters by Moss, will be available in the podcast's store.

[A Life Well Wasted via GeekTyrant]