Anytime something shocking or awful is done by the video game industry, you'll have people chiming in that we should leave it alone because it's actually art and so it has a right to exist (because apparently being art means the ability to exist without criticism and any criticism is actually the equivalent of censorship!) It seems apparent that Deep Silver had similar thinking—looking at how the controversial special edition of Dead Island: Riptide is marketed, they say that it's an "an iconic Roman marble torso sculpture."

Which is to say, they wanted us to consider their torso like this art, which to me, seems absurd. They're not equivalent at all. One is good art, the other, not so much.

But, let's bite—so proposes Gameological in their write up, "It Belongs In A Museum." They consider the Dead Island torso as art that could be in a museum—but not just any art type of art. Shock art.

Shock art is a type of art that, according to Wikipedia, "incorporates disturbing imagery, sound or scents to create a shocking experience. It is a way to disturb 'smugs, complacent and hypocrital' people."

But if we actually stop and analyze the Riptide torso as a work of art, things get kid of ridiculous.

Note the spinal column that juts out of the neck. The way your eye is drawn to an insouciant bit of bone on the arm. These are important cues in the visual vocabulary of Modern Game Studio artworks. They symbolize worship of the deities Dark and Gritty. According to lore, anyone who gazes upon these gods-and isn't too much of a pussy to handle it-is granted the power of being a badass who nobody should mess with. On account of the darkness. And grit.

One might note that the breasts, however, are intact. There's a good, artistic reason for that.

This is in keeping with the long game-industry tradition of honoring huge bazongas above all (and honoring the ass, too, if there's any development time left over after programming the huge bazongas). Even in the early years of 3D games, when female characters had faces that looked like bulging hexagons with lipstick, developers managed to give video game breasts hyper-real motion and buoyancy. Game women benefited from an experimental field of game science known as "boob physics" or "teat-jigglies." This piece is a salute to that heritage.

The best part comes when John Teti, the author of the post, explains the gore:

The gore serves as a complement to the misogyny, because without that face and those limbs to distract the viewer, a clear point of focus-boobs-can emerge. It's so elegant how it all fits together. You know in A Beautiful Mind when all those numbers and equations are connecting together around Russell Crowe's head, like a dazzling crystal? This is like that, except with hating women instead of math.

Ouuuuch. But, there you have it, defenders of Severed Torso As Art. It's art now; we've considered it as such. What that art says may not exactly be good—but hey! Art.

It Belongs In A Museum [Gameological ]

Anytime something shocking or awful is done by the video game industry, you'll have people chiming in that we should leave it alone because it's actually art and so it has a right to exist (because apparently being art means the ability to exist without criticism and any criticism is actually the equivalent of censorship!) It seems apparent that Deep Silver had similar thinking—looking at how the controversial special edition of Dead Island: Riptide is marketed, they say that it's an "an iconic Roman marble torso sculpture."

Which is to say, they wanted us to consider their torso like this art, which to me, seems absurd. They're not equivalent at all. One is good art, the other, not so much.

But, let's bite—so proposes Gameological in their write up, "It Belongs In A Museum." They consider the Dead Island torso as art that could be in a museum—but not just any art type of art. Shock art.

Shock art is a type of art that, according to Wikipedia, "incorporates disturbing imagery, sound or scents to create a shocking experience. It is a way to disturb 'smugs, complacent and hypocrital' people."

But if we actually stop and analyze the Riptide torso as a work of art, things get kid of ridiculous.

Note the spinal column that juts out of the neck. The way your eye is drawn to an insouciant bit of bone on the arm. These are important cues in the visual vocabulary of Modern Game Studio artworks. They symbolize worship of the deities Dark and Gritty. According to lore, anyone who gazes upon these gods—and isn't too much of a pussy to handle it—is granted the power of being a badass who nobody should mess with. On account of the darkness. And grit.

One might note that the breasts, however, are intact. There's a good, artistic reason for that.

This is in keeping with the long game-industry tradition of honoring huge bazongas above all (and honoring the ass, too, if there's any development time left over after programming the huge bazongas). Even in the early years of 3D games, when female characters had faces that looked like bulging hexagons with lipstick, developers managed to give video game breasts hyper-real motion and buoyancy. Game women benefited from an experimental field of game science known as "boob physics" or "teat-jigglies." This piece is a salute to that heritage.

The best part comes when John Teti, the author of the post, explains the gore:

The gore serves as a complement to the misogyny, because without that face and those limbs to distract the viewer, a clear point of focus-boobs can emerge. It's so elegant how it all fits together. You know in A Beautiful Mind when all those numbers and equations are connecting together around Russell Crowe's head, like a dazzling crystal? This is like that, except with hating women instead of math.

Ouuuuch. But, there you have it, defenders of Severed Torso As Art. It's art now; we've considered it as such. What that art says may not exactly be good—but hey! Art.

It Belongs In A Museum [Gameological ]

By now you've probably seen the ridiculous bikini-clad severed torso that publisher Deep Silver is packaging with the European/Australian special edition of zombie action-RPG Dead Island: Riptide.

It is gross and awful—to the point where Deep Silver just issued an apology for the statue—but hey, why let them have all the fun? We've put together some Severed Torso Special Editions for a handful of other deserving video games.

Above: the Portal turret gets the torso treatment.

Torso Mario isn't quite as useful as Raccoon Mario or even Frog Mario, but he's still an integral part of any statue collector's inventory.

There's nothing like cuddling up with a Cortana torso after a long night of shooting space aliens and getting called racial slurs on Xbox Live.

Dante from Devil May Cry apparently has no penis. Now he also has no arms or legs or head.

"Reach for the sky!" says Sheriff Woody in Disney Infinity. "Unless you have no arms!"

This lovely Princess Peach torso ain't gonna save itself.

Your turn, Kotaku Photoshoppers. What other games do you think need special torso editions?

Following today's firestorm of negative reactions, game publisher Deep Silver has apologized for the ridiculously tasteless zombie torso statue that they planned to include in one of the collector's editions for Dead Island Riptide.

Deep Silver posted the apology on Twitter:

A statement on the Zombie Bait Edition:

We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide "Zombie Bait Edition", the collector's edition announced for Europe and Australia. Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector's Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original Dead Island.

We sincerely regret this choice. We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver's entire international team today. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.

It's not clear whether Deep Silver will still sell the statue. I've reached out to ask and will update should I hear back.

If you are a severed torso fetishist or serial killer, you will undoubtedly be ecstatic to know that one special edition of Dead Island: Riptide comes with the above statue.

Fans of bloody female torsos clad in UK flag bikinis can go out and pre-order the "Zombie Bait" edition of Deep Silver's upcoming open-world action role-playing game right now, assuming they live in Australia or select European countries. Sorry, U.S. torso aficionados. You guys can get the "Rigor Mortis" edition, which comes with a zombie hula girl bobble figurine, a zombie arm bottle opener, and a wooden keychain. No torso.

I'm not sure exactly what one does with a bikini-clad, severed female torso, but at least it makes a good conversation piece. Put this on your mantle and everyone'll be talking.

Really though, this is disgusting. It's the sort of marketing misstep that can make it feel really embarrassing to like video games.

I've reached out to Deep Silver's UK office to ask what the deal is. Deep Silver's American PR rep says the company's U.S. branch was not involved here. Dead Island: Riptide is out on April 23 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

Like the original Dead Island, the sequel, Dead Island: Riptide won't have a German release, because that country is really weird about depictions of killing video game zombies, who technically are not even human and literally are not real. The game's creative director was asked if he thinks Germans are still getting their hands on the game.

"I hope so," Sebastien Reichert told PCGamesN.

Reichert barely contains his scorn for German law, which forbids violence against humanlike characters. He points out that Gears of War 3 had no problem getting past German prudes, even though it contains graphically violent finishing moves against humanlike enemies.

"It feels fucking awkward to have one of the most successful games in years and nobody in your country knows it," said Reichert. Techland is based in Poland but Dead Island was partially developed in Germany.

Apparently the ability to mutilate corpses is what pushes censors' buttons, but Reichert points out the game actually punishes you by breaking or degrading weapons used to do that. Doesn't matter, the fact the means are there is enough to get the thumb from Germany.

Dead Island: Riptide dev: "You can buy Gears of War in Germany, but not Dead Island. What's the difference?" [PCGamesN]

Sleeping Dogs for $30! Dead Island for $10! Kingdom Hearts 3D for $20!

Like everyone else in the world, Square Enix is holding a Black Friday sale this weekend. From tomorrow through Monday, you'll be able to buy a bunch of their games online at some decent discounts. Here's the promo image (looking super pixelated because for some reason Square sent it to us really small):

Really, no one else in the gaming biz writes press releases like this. Here's today's, a rare two-in-one:

Subject: Emergency 2013 - a rescue strategy game
From: Aubrey Norris
BCC: Me

Yep, that is totally a genre. As a PC strategy nerd, I am totally OK with this.

So like, if you were ever wondering what you should do/what would happen if a volcano just straight up erupted out of nowhere in Switzerland or something, yeah man this is totally your game! That's what you get for being all neutral and shit, Switzerland! :D LOL jk Switzerland we cool, we cool.

I, for one, will be playing this game to see if there is a SWAT team anywhere in it. I've had an obsession with SWAT teams since I was in college (I don't know why?) and they are pretty much the hottest thing ever. I mean, look at this:

.

How is that not dead sexy? And the shield! Holy shit! :O

Well, it is. >=( DONT JUDGE ME

Press Release attached, Screenshot link below!

[LINK REDACTED]

OH AND BTW YOU GUYS:

We're looking to mebbe do a Collector's Edition for Dead Island Riptide.

But we want the community to decide what goes in it! Not just like some "LOL HERE'S SOME SHIT THAT WAS LYING AROUND IN OUR ORIFICE" thing, you know?

So please, encourage your friends/relatives/communities/Spice Girls Addiction support groups to vote in our poll and let us know what we should put in it!

http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=ku8d1catb1qyka531578

<3 THX YALL AH DO LUV UR FAEC
Aubrey Norris
Manager of Marketing & PR
Deep Silver

Bravo, Aubrey. As always.

The CGI trailer for Dead Island: Riptide does seem kind of similar to that emotionally riveting one for the first Dead Island game.

Slow, soft (though not as good) music. A focus on loving characters in a bad spot. Pretty, warm colors. A sad ending. It just doesn't go in reverse. And it certainly didn't capture me quite like the first game's trailer, which you can reminisce about below:

So what do you guys think? Does it live up to the hype-filled trailer of last year?

Dead Island Riptide CGI-Trailer [North America] [YouTube via The Verge]

Dead Island was a great game. It had its problems, sure, but there was something particularly wonderful about Techland's open-world, survival horror, melee-focused game.

It might've been how particularly brutal the zombies grew to be. The Butcher is maybe one of the most terrifying enemies I've come across in a video game. He's gross-looking, super built, and has razor-sharp stubs of bone for forearms. Both he and the other slew of large and small, fast and slow zombies made surviving the deceptively-gorgeous island quite the task. Dead Island's intrigue might also have been due to the many variety of weapons you could both find and create, taping electrical wires to machetes and nailing spikes onto baseball bats. It was a solid cooperative experience, too, letting you seamlessly jump in on missions with players who were nearby.

All those reasons made Dead Island an enjoyable experience, even if it didn't live up to the emotionally-charged hype that one awesome cinematic trailer built up. So it's with excitement that I received news of the next installment of the franchise.

I took a first real look at Dead Island: Riptide at this year's PAX Prime. It was a hands-off demo, behind closed doors. Here's a rundown of my thought process:

1. Oh, hey! It's Dead Island.

The characters are familiar, the zombies are familiar, the weapons are familiar, and the islandy feel is familiar. Though the four characters from the original title are making a return, there's a new character making an appearance that we haven't met yet. Logan and Purna led the demo at level 25s, and I instantly made note of the message on the screen that denoted a nearby player we could jump to to play with.

2. This is a very wet Dead Island.

It's the same resort a different island than we saw the same four characters trek through in the first title. but it's been transformed Players will now navigate a similar-looking island, ravaged by a monsoon. There's water everywhere. So much so that the group has to man a boat just to get through the island. Zombies will get in the way, sometimes even pulling you off the boat. At this point I'm wondering what fish-like zombie will have mutated to survive the new, wet environment. Zombies seem to evolve fast, so I have to imagine it's likely.

3. Is that... is that a sword with electricity strapped on? Oh, my favorite!

It's fairly similar, and even more deadly with as much water as is around your enemies, electrocuting them in their own puddle of death. The neat addition is that it seems to be a double-blade sword. How deadly.

4. Ha, they still walk funny when they carry stuff.

The two characters—Logan and Purna—being led throughout the "Breaching the Tunnels" level of Chapter 6 had to carry water pumps with them on their way to a church. They carried the metal pieces through fallen trees and into a cave before arriving there.

5. Mines? Now we're talking.

Fortifying defense hubs are a new kind of mission in Dead Island: Riptide. You'll build fences with the barricade system to cover the gaps in the dilapidated church, and plant mines around the perimeter to keep the incoming horde of zombies at bay. The water pump you're using to help you escape makes a lot of noise. And every faithful zombie lore reader knows that noise equals lots and lots of zombies, so planting mines around your fortified church is a welcomed addition. It's not just explosive mines, either. There seems to be a healthy variety of mines, like poison mines and sonic mines.

6. Oh man, I think my head is spinning.

There's lots of running back and forth involved in these defense missions. Especially when you have a movable, mounted machine gun at your disposal, and can set it in the front or back of the church to rid the swampy perimeter of those fodder enemies.

7. Did that zombie just throw something at me?! What the HELL, zombie. I'm going to stab you in and around the face for that.

The Grenadier zombie can throw grenades at you. These are some sophisticated jerks! Even with the machine gun, you'll probably still want to run up to zombies to thin out the crowd before it becomes too massive to handle. So lots of close-ranged combat is still an emphasis.

8. It's cool, grenade-throwing zombie. I've got lots of grenades of my own.

Techland wants to conserve that desperate survival feeling of the first game, but let you have fun with tossing around grenades, too. So when the danger is amped up—like during defense missions when you have to deal with a huge horde of zombies—you'll get more grenades to play around with. But at other points you'll still have to worry about resource management.

The defense aspect seemed neat. It's a collaborative effort, and lets you get wild with ammunition for a short amount of time before stepping back into the difficulties of harsh and unlikely survival. I'm excited for a new arsenal, too, but this demo didn't give me too extensive of a look to tell you how that's going. One last feature that I'm excited about, though, is that you can move your character over from Dead Island. Which we all know will make for even more brutal enemies, but there's something great about starting off strong and being asked to defeat even stronger enemies.