Perhaps fresh isn't the best word for these screens of Konami's sequel to the horror game based on the movie with a jillion sequels, but none of the other adjectives I considered were compatible with keeping down your breakfast.

Jigsaw is back in Saw 2, another light-hearted romp exploring the joys of self-mutilation and preservation. Looking through the screenshots, I see some fighting, another bear-trap sort of device, and oh, look - you get to use a scalpel to remove the stitches from your sewn-open eyes. That beats a breakfast burrito and a cold glass of OJ any day.

While the Xbox Live dashboard spilled the beans on Gears of War 3, according to CVG sources, Epic is also planning to reveal a shooter in development for EA later this month.

Sources told CVG that Gears creator Epic Games originally planned on revealing this mysterious new EA shooter next week, only to have the date pushed back due to Cliff Bleszinski's delayed appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show. The non-Gears shooter is apparently being developed by Epic Studio People Can Fly, the Polish developers behind the original Painkiller.

"EA needs to make sure enough days have passed between the Gears launch and its own announcement," the source told us. "They were originally scheduling in an announcement for the People Can Fly game early next week, but Cliffy B's postponed TV chat has pushed that back by at least a few days. It's looking like the following week now."

EA briefly mentioned the Epic shooter in their Q3 financial results, and the trademark Bulletstorm might indicate what this new game is being called.

If this rumor turns out to be true, then Epic will be zero for two on keeping new game announcements quiet.

Epic readying TWO major announcements in April [CVG]

DeviantARTist Brendon Phillips' Mega Man-inspired hoodie designs make me wish I could sew, as seen at DeviantART via Capcom Unity.

1) Don't call this device you use to go hunting on the Wii a "gun," even if you hold it like one. 2) Don't make it look like one either.

Those are some of the notes that the creators of the "hunting controller" for the June-targeted Wii game Bass Pro Shops The Hunt worked with while developing a peripheral for their virtual animal-shooting experience. Pscylone Games' Chip Pedersen, who demoed The Hunt for Kotaku in New York City yesterday, explained that Nintendo prefers that gun-controllers for the Wii aren't called gun controllers (the Wii-maker's own is called the Zapper). And stores and moms, Pedersen said, would prefer the thing doesn't even look like a gun.

So we've got the sci-fi looking rifle instead, an unusual gaming peripheral that lets players take aim at virtual deer in a game that is otherwise largely built for authenticity. Consider that this first-person shooter, which requires the patient hunting of animals and includes authentic fauna and hunting techniques, even lowers your in-game rifle when your character runs, a hunting standard if not a video game one.

As you can see in the video, the Wii's Remote and Nunchuk are embedded in the casing of The Hunt's controller, allowing players to feel the shape and heft of a hunting rifle, if not the kick.

The Hunt's gun controller may look odd, but it's hard to object to this type of design in light of a recent tragedy that involved a Wii gun controller that looked like a real gun.

Who remember the last time a big video game announcement went as planned? Happens about as often as no one here comments about video games.

Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ.

It appears that the iPhone's online identity crisis may be nearing an end, but at what cost?

Earlier this week Apple unveiled a potential solution for one of the key issues that remain for gaming on their popular iPhone, iPod and iPad devices: The lack of a single cohesive online experience for playing games.

The Game Center, due to hit Apple devices this summer with their latest firmware update, will include a social gaming network, the ability to invite and track friends, matchmaking, leaderboards and, yes, even achievements.

But what about those game publishers who took it upon themselves to solve an issue that Apple was so slow to address? Publishers Gameloft, Ngmoco and Aurora Feint each operate popular services for the iPhone, giving tens of millions of gamers the ability to connect with one another, share their gaming experiences, and play online. Some even have their own achievements.

But now that Apple is rolling out a big, platform-wide service, what happens to the effort and money they put into giving gamers something Apple wouldn't?

When asked about this issue at Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters yesterday, Apple employees ducked the question, saying only that the real problem wasn't the total lack of such services on the device from Apple, but rather the "bunch of different social networks" that launched to fill that void.

Apple's goal, they said, was to build it into their devices so that everyone can be on the same gaming platform.

"We expect developers will build this into their games because they'll have a wider audience," one employee said.

That call to not panic sounds about right to David Roberts, the CEO of PopCap Games, who said they plan to introduce the service to their popular line of games eventually.

Of course, Pop Cap doesn't have a service used by millions to play communally on an iPhone or iPod Touch. A service that this summer will likely become obsolete. This sudden push into obsolescence shouldn't, though, come as a surprise to the big three companies that were improving Apple's gaming with their own money. And in fact, most of them seem to have been prepared for the news, already shifting their services from providing a way for gamers to communicate to giving them a chance to buy things inside a game.

When I spoke to Gameloft, Ngmoco and Aurora Feint last December they acknowledged that while the void left by Apple's lack of online service provided each of their companies with an opportunity, in the long run it could lead to issues.

"In the long term it's a problem if the game networks are fractured," Peter Relan, chairman of Aurora Feint said. "In the short term it's OK to have multiple because it creates innovation."

Jason Citron, CEO of Aurora Feint, welcomed the news of Apple's Game Center saying that the service would work with their own OpenFeint gaming service. And Game Center will also support OpenFeint X, a virtual goods management system for free to play games.

All 19 million of their users will automatically get the new OpenFeint X accounts as it continues to roll out, Citron said.

"OpenFeint X is currently built on top of OpenFeint and in the future it will also sit on Apple's Game Center social graph, achievements and leaderboards so developers and gamers don't miss a step," he wrote. "Apple is a key partner and we are delighted that they have validated the first half of the OpenFeint vision and we can now fulfill the second half: OpenFeint X and Virtual Goods based Social Games. Our developers can be 100 percent assured that we will continue to invest in OpenFeint so our 1500 live games, 2000 games in development and 19M players have a flawless experience with OpenFeint and Game Center."

Ngmoco also welcomes the new online gaming service as they transition their own plus+ network in the direction of in-App purchases as well.

"Game Center is an exciting first party innovation for the ecosystem that reinforces much of what plus+ has already accomplished and proven out early in its life cycle," said Simon Jeffery, Ngmoco's chief publishing officer. "It will effectively clean up the social space on the iPhone, which has become confusing and cluttered to consumers due to the number of social gaming networks vying for attention. Ngmoco has anticipated this move from Apple for some time, and is happy to see a cleaner developer and consumer experience on the horizon."

Jeffery added that he thinks the advent of Apple's Game Center will have very little impact on Ngmoco because their plus+ network has, in anticipation of this news, already started moving toward being more of a service and less about being a set of social gaming feature.

Ngmoco had even already shifted some of the people around to prepare for the news, he added.

"Our games are already reflecting this shift in strategy and our move toward deeply embedding social functionality within products like We Rule and Godfinger," he said. "I think that we have very clearly demonstrated that plus+ pioneered social gaming features on the iPhone, and that it has subsequently evolved into much, much more."

Gameloft, which in December said that it was good that gamers had a choice when it came to which online network to use for social gaming, didn't respond to request for comment.

The Game Center is most certainly something that Apple needed to do, but why did they take so long to do it?

Like their infamous feet-dragging on adding the ability to cut and paste on their devices and making their iPhone able to multitask, it seems that while Apple mostly gets it, they don't completely get it.

The decision to finally add cut and paste to the iPhone was met with, astoundingly, accolades. But Apple's news earlier this week that a form of multitasking was coming to the iPhone seemed to be met with less enthusiasm and more grumbling about why it took so long.

Now, two years and 50,000 game and entertainment titles after launching the iPhone, Apple has finally gotten around to providing a way for gamers to connect.

Even if the three major companies who have been providing a place for communities to take root and grow for years are OK with that, what's to say that the gamers who have found friends, built a virtual home and place to play with these services are now willing to just give up on them?

Sure, this is probably necessary, but I find Apple's seeming nonchalance about stepping in and bulldozing over these virtual communities without so much as a note of regret more than a little troubling.

To: Crecente
From: Bashcraft
RE: One, Two, Three

Tomorrow, Mini-Bash are going to go to the video store (remember those?) to rent a movie. He said he wanted to see a Mr. Bean video. (Kid loves Mr. Bean and has been calling his younger brother "Teddy" for the past week or so.)

Mini-Bash really likes Mr. Bean's Mini Cooper and keeps asking if it goes as fast as a GT-R or a Porsche. No, I say. But it goes fast, right? he asks.

He's seen all the Mr. Bean videos at the video store. Besides the movies, there is a three volume set of the stuff that was on UK television. He has seen all of them. Several times. Recently, he watched them starting from Vol.1 again. He hasn't rented Vol.3 again yet. But he said to me today:

*SPOILER*
I don't want to see the part where the tank smushes the Mini Cooper. Can you fast forward that part?
*SPOILER*

Sure, I said.

What you missed last night
Gears Of War 3, Coming April 2011
What's With The Nuns, Japan?
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Product Placement Explained!
New Pokémon Games Revealed: Pokémon Black & Pokémon White
What, Exactly, Is DRM?

According to Crysis 2, one of the biggest shooters coming to consoles and PCs this fall, there will be two ways to save the Big Apple in early September of 2023: Like a predator; or like a tank.

Developers from German development studio Crytek came to the New York City of 2010 this week to show off a playable version of the more bombastic, more streamlined — but, they say, not at all dumbed down — sequel to the PC-only first-person shooter Crysis.

In a demo running on Xbox 360 hardware, they controlled a super-solider from a first-person perspective, using Crysis 2's Nanosuit 2.0 to toggle between two main modes, predator and tank, to take on crafty black ops human enemies and then to try to fend off an overwhelming tide of Ceph aliens descending upon Manhattan.

The first game's Nanosuit, which toggled between four enhancements — enhanced armor, strength, speed and cloak — has been altered/upgraded/streamlined to allow the player to toggle between what Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli described to Kotaku as the tools to let Crysis 2 "be an action game or a stealth game." That's how players wound up playing the first, he said, oscillating between the two modes of play.

One main mode of the suit will enable stealth tactics, improving the player's ability to sneak up on enemies and, as we saw during a sequence of the demo that occurred on a rooftop in downtown Manhattan, see through walls at close quarters to spot enemies. The more aggressive mode will draw more fire but make the player more powerful.

"The player chooses it but then the player toggles on top of it the power or tactical modes," Yerli said. "He can stealth-run, stealth-jump or stealth-assess. He can tank-run, tank-jump or tank-assess."

Beyond that, new powers will be added and can be combined, unlocking new abilities that enhance one of those two ways a player might play, a simpler first tactical choice leading to more varied long-term outcomes.

The first Crysis had a reputation for all but melting PCs, running best on high-end hardware that costs a few paychecks. But the new Crysis 2, even when running on an Xbox 360, looks quite nice in its own right. The game's New York appeared crisp, the Chrysler building gleaming in the background of the scene we saw, an intersection densely with the detail of detailed buildings, street detritus and enemies.

The demo began with the lead character engaging black ops soldiers on a rooftop battle. New York had become a warzone, all but abandoned by civilians but full of what they left behind, wrecked. This future New York is a little more green than the current one. It's a place with more rooftop gardens and ivy climbing walls, though still a far cry from the jungle of the first Crysis. Enemies on the rooftop seemed smart and cover was a vulnerable thing. Concrete tree planters chipped and crumbled when hit by gunfire.

The plot of the new game involves saving New York, a city Yerli described as "the pride of mankind," a place of landmarks that dramatic, unannounced things will happen to. The Black Ops guys may be adversaries. Apparently our character has something they want back. But Crytek is not saying what that is. And, halfway through the demo, it didn't matter. Despite a Crytek developer's adept switching of guns and toggling of suit powers, the enemy gained the advantage. The Black Ops had gained the upper hand and arrested our hero, but the chopper we were being brought away on was hit by something. Suddenly our character was lying in the streets, witnessing an assault by massive Ceph aliens. The suit revived our hero and we were back in the fight.

Crytek is promising a more action-packed sequel and one with the focus that will match the expectations of finicky console players. But Yerli insists that neither the suit nor the flow of the action will be dumbed down. The first game was celebrated for offering tactical variety and the developers of the new game maintain that that is back in the new one. In fact, they say it is enhanced by the sheer amount of stuff they can put in a city scene with which you can interact. So, as demonstrated before Kotaku's eyes, the game's hero can shoot at enemies but also toss newspaper boxes at them, blow up cars, and swing lampposts. We were told that punching cars will trigger airbags, the tactical value of that not entirely clear yet. Hot dog carts, can either be tossed or detonated. Think of it, the Crytek people said, as an urban jungle.

The Ceph were too much in this demo. So impressive were they that a pod landed, destroyed the side of a building and out rumbled an even more massive alien that blasted hero and demo to a cliffhanger conclusion. What Crytek had shown was not terribly original in execution but advanced visually and exciting in its thunderous volume and avalanche pace. The variety of play looks to be as flexible as advertised.

The new game does have some narrative connection to the first, though the developers are not spelling that out. Knowledge of that first game won't be required, so console players, who never had a chance to play Crysis or the spin-off Crysis: Warhead won't feel left out. But there will be some as yet unexplained character connections.

The big draw here is an advanced first-person shooter set in a near-future New York under siege. The echoes of September 11 are clear. The urge to save the city is strong. The move to a console-friendly style of development does not appear to shatter the Crysis formula, but it has indeed been tweaked, the better for all players, Yerli maintains, and the better to save a city that is once more under attack.

The game is set for a late 2010 release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is developed by Crytek and published by EA.

Capcom's wildly popular historical action epic Sengoku Basara 3 has a release date for Japan. Would you like to hear it? Lean closer.

July 29.

The game will be released on the Nintendo Wii and the PS3. It will allow players to hack-and-slash a bunch of enemies and punch giant holes in the ground. As it should!

If you like comparing things, compare the Wii and PS3 screens right here.

This post originally appeared on Kotaku Japan.

We've featured the art of Australian artist Patrick Brown a few times before here on Kotaku. But you know what? When someone has such a dense gallery of amazing video game art, a few times isn't enough.

So here's a good look at some of Brown's more recent works. While displaying an unhealthy obsession with the Grand Theft Auto series, Brown also covers titles such as Gears of War, Resident Evil 5, BioShock 2, Army of Two and even the unreleased Red Dead Redemption.

To see more of his stuff, check out his gallery at the link below.

[Patrick Brown @ deviantART]