Behold our first glimpse of gameplay from Sega's Binary Domain, a cautionary tale in which humanity must fight for survival against the highly advanced robots we created with our own hands. I bet Watson is behind this.

It's the same old story I've been shouting from street corners for years. "Stop making robots!" I'd yell. "They're going to kill us all and transform us into flesh-based toaster ovens." That's a normal toaster over, only all the components are made out of flesh, and it smells like bacon when you turn it on. I have no idea why the robots would need this.

While I was aiming at 2030, Sega's Yakuza team seems to think this is all going down in Japan in the year 2080, which makes sense considering where they park their cars.

It looks very metal. Gun-shot riddled metal, to be precise. I think I approve, but then you never can really tell how well a multi-cultural squad of commandos battling out-of-control robots in futuristic Japan really feels until you play it for yourself. Perhaps we'll get a chance at E3 in June?

Binary Domain is in development for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

In today's Speak-Up on Kotaku, commenter Monsieur.Froid urges us to sit back, relax, and get lost in the wondrous landscapes of the most gorgeous virtual worlds gaming has to offer.

What are some of the absolutely best video game worlds out there? I think I know what I love best about a video game, and that is getting lost just in the sheer landscape and imagined worlds on the market.

Fallout 3? Sure, it's all a monochromatic Exorcist-soup colour, but seeing the Capital Building and Obelisk in the distance when you first step out of the vault? My god, it's gorgeous.

Uncharted 1 and 2 are both absolute stunners. The Turkish coastal city? The snow-covered mountains of Nepal? Beautiful.

Red Dead Redemption? No words are needed for this one. I've easily lost a few hours just "playing" this game by walking around watching day turn to night and vice versa.

So much for Portal 2 being too short. Fans of Portal 2 may be surprised to learn that a lot of people who own the game aren't playing it very much.

Little more than half the players who bought the game on Steam have finished it and more than one in ten of them haven't even gotten to that very first puzzle in the solo campaign, according to the service's achievement-tracking stats. Only 55.7% of players had earned the final achievement of the solo game. Only 89.0% had even earned the first achievement, which can be acquired with virtually no effort after the game starts.

Those numbers drop even further when you look at the co-op achievements; 51.1% percent of Portal 2 owners unlocked that initial co-op achievement, and only 21.7% percent teamed-up long enough to finish all of the co-op puzzles.

It took our reviewer a little more than nine hours to beat the solo campaign and a half-dozen more for co-op. For most people, that's not a single-sitting serving, so a general dip in the achievement completion rate is to be expected. People have school, work and social activities outside of gaming to get to. On the other hand, nine hours isn't so long that gamers, especially fans of the original wouldn't have enough time to dig into the game.

Looking back at the stats, the biggest drop-off in Portal 2 progress occurs after the game's fourth achievement, which 79.6% of gamers have attained. Only 73.6% get the fifth one. There are eight mandatory achievements to earn after that, before the game is done.

By comparison... Portal 2 isn't the only excellent game being underplayed by Steam users. Only 73.9% of the people who own the first Portal on Steam have earned the game's first achievement; 48.5% finished it.
The Portal series' numbers are wonderful compared to indie favorite World of Goo, which has been finished by a mere 18.6% of the people who own it on Steam. 25.8% have finished Trine.

Then there's the co-op campaign. I can understand that people may be hesitant to try it; there's a certain type of experience fans equate with the game and interacting with others doesn't really fall into that category. Still, for every player that has fully completed co-op, there are two players who don't appear to have even tried it.

I don't mean to sound standoffish or judgmental of the people who want to take their time. Its just always interesting (and surprising) to see the realities of how people ingest games versus the way they are spoken of by the media and in forums.

I was wondering when Activision was planning on returning to the dual pistol-wielding line cook from that live-action Call of Duty: Black Ops commercial. Welcome back, old friend. Things have escalated since we last met.

What we have here is a quick look at the five new maps coming to the Xbox 360 by way of the Escalation map pack, due out on May 3. We've seen snippets of them before, but this time they're backed by The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter and sandwiched between live-action diner drama. When he pulled out those dual orders, I nearly cried with job. Forget Buffy and Freddy, I want to play this guy.

Oh, perchance for but a moment to be an inbred simp amidst a pageant to celebrate the sublimation of fresh genetic material into our state-supported carnival sideshow. I would look out from Buckingham Palace and I would think Wot I think is that I'm quite a proper fellar and...ooh thar's cake I'm'a gonna throw it at the peasants!

(As a game Let Them Eat Cake is thin gruel, but it's amusing for a second! And who doesn't like to pretend they're a pretty, pretty prince? You're a good prince, yes you are.)

Let Them Eat Cake [LetThemEatCake.co.uk]

Don't you just love the spring? The sun is bright, the air warm, balmy and refreshing. A perfect time...to stay indoors and play video games! Speaking of which, what are you all playing right now? Let's hear some talking.

User kaploy9 has introduced a 19th-century child to Kinect—and with such terrific results! If you'd like to indulge in some Photoshop-assisted time travel, do so here: #TAYpics.

(Read this thread for directions on how to do a TAYpic.)

Let's say you make a video game that involves driving illegal immigrants across protected borders, a game that's deemed "disgraceful" and in "poor taste" before it's even been released. That game, Smuggle Truck, is then submitted to the iTunes App Store. It is, unsurprisingly, rejected. What do you do? Make Snuggle Truck—swapping the "m" for an "n"—a cuter, cuddlier and less controversial game.

What was once Smuggle Truck, a parody game involving the over-the-top, physics-based, Flash game-style transport of illegal immigrants, has seen its humans replaced with stuffed animals, brightly colored bears, ponies and bunnies. Instead of human beings seeking asylum in another country, the stuffed and oppressed animals of Snuggle Truck want to reach the safety of a zoo.

Owlchemy Labs released Snuggle Truck on the iTunes App Store today for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. It's a simple affair: touch the right side of the touchscreen to accelerate, touch the left side to decelerate. Tilt your iOS device to balance the truck for safe landings and shake it to engage power-ups, like a high-speed rocket boost.

As your Snuggle Truck speeds over rocky and pitted terrain, the stuffed animals will bounce to and fro in the bed of your rickety, rusty truck. Tread carefully, avoiding pits, moose and TNT-filled crates, lest you lose your living cargo. And watch out for the Fuzzies that launch onto your path, for if you catch them, you'll receive a bonus.

There are more than 40 levels in Snuggle Truck, each with medal-based challenges that will ensure plenty of replayability as things ramp up from easy to hard to extreme. This is a game where beating your best time and transporting your cargo safely is the goal.

And while Owlchemy modified Smuggle Truck to be more iTunes friendly, less potentially offensive, it also released a Mac and PC version of the game today. That release lets you play both the adorable Snuggle Truck version or the original, ire-raising Smuggle Truck, which sees you transporting humans over dangerous terrain. Smuggle Truck also launches swaddled babies instead of Fuzzies, which might not sit right with some people.

But the PC and Mac release of Smuggle Truck has a unique feature that the snugglier version doesn't. Legal Immigration mode lets you emigrate the official way. It just takes 19 years worth of waiting to "beat."

(The Mac/Windows release also lets you use your iPhone as a wireless remote control, by the way, if tilting your iDevice feels more natural.)

For simple arcade-style fun with a fair amount of challenge and value, Snuggle Truck is a solid little investment, an amusing inside joke that you can while away the minutes with. It's beautifully rendered, with bright, cartoonish graphics that separate it from the graphically simple Flash games to which it might draw comparisons. The iPhone and iPod touch version runs $1.99 USD. Snuggle Truck HD for iPad costs $2.99 USD.

The Smuggle Truck PC and Mac bundle will set you back $4.99 USD. Grab it at SmuggleTruck.com.

Snuggle Truck for iPhone / iPad [iTunes]

ALL HAIL THE KING | JAPAN: Veteran voice actor Fumihiko Tachiki will be bringing Duke Nukem Forever alive in Japan. (Photo by Game Watch Impress)

PS3 Hacker George Hotz Denies He's Behind the PSN Breach PS3 rapper hacker George Hotz got sued by Sony. He made an rap video that drew comparisons between getting fucked up the ass and the lawsuit. Hotz reached an agreement with Sony, but there's speculation that the famed hacker is still bitter, that he's behind the PSN breach.

The World War Z Game That Could Have Been Max Brooks' World War Z is one of the best books about zombies ever written, using the subject of a zombie apocalypse not as a chance to stage a few cheap scares, but to rewrite the history of the world.

Blizzard Turns up the Heat in World of Warcraft Patch 4.2 World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion brought the forces of Ragnaros the Firelord to Mount Hyjal, threatening to destroy the all-important World Tree. Now, the Horde and Alliance take the battle to the Firelord. Blizzard's Cory Stockton talked me through the upcoming 4.2 patch, from the Firelands dungeon to the new legendary weapon casters will be drooling over.

The Most Heroic Restaurant in Japan Kamen Rider is an ass-kickin' Japanese hero. Adults and kids alike enjoy the long-running character's latest incarnation Kamen Rider 000.

Your First Portal 2 DLC Is Only A Few Months Away Portal 2 may only be a week old, but if you've already finished it - and these days I feel like the only person on the internet who hasn't - you won't have too long to wait until there's fresh content for the game.

Catherine 's Cover Art Too Hot For Some ‘Sensitive' American Gamers Atlus will bring the erotic horror puzzle platformer adventure Catherine to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this summer in North America. And it will do so with just one small change for one particular demographic: "more sensitive shoppers."

PS3 rapper hacker George Hotz got sued by Sony. He made an rap video that drew comparisons between getting fucked up the ass and the lawsuit. Hotz reached an agreement with Sony, but there's speculation that the famed hacker is still bitter, that he's behind the PSN breach.

"And to anyone who thinks I was involved in any way with this, I'm not crazy, and would prefer to not have the FBI knocking on my door," Hotz blogged. "Running homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool, hacking into someone elses server and stealing databases of user info is not cool." Hotz said that doing such makes the hacking community look bad—"even if it is aimed at douches like Sony".

Hotz, however, doesn't lay blame on Sony's engineers for the PSN security breach. "The fault lies with the executives who declared a war on hackers, laughed at the idea of people penetrating the fortress that once was Sony, whined incessantly about piracy, and kept hiring more lawyers when they really needed to hire good security experts," wrote Hotz. "Alienating the hacker community is not a good idea."

In his lengthy post, the young hacker speculated that it was "Sony's arrogance and misunderstanding of ownership" that put the company in this position. According to Hotz, Sony thought the PS3 was unhackable and didn't think it was necessary to waste money on pointless security.

The remainder of Hotz's post is spent talking about playing homebrew games, defining hacker vs. cracker and offering words to those who carried out the breach.

To the perpetrator, two things. You are clearly talented and will have plenty of money (or a jail sentence and bankruptcy) coming to you in the future. Don't be a dick and sell people's information. And I'd love to see a write up on how it all went down...lord knows we'll never get that from Sony, noobs probably had the password set to '4' or something. I mean, at least it was randomly generated.

Earlier this month, Hotz said he'd never buy a Sony product again and that he supported the Anonymous-sponsored boycott, turned out to be a bust.

Recent News [geohot got sued]

Piclings isn't your typical platformer. Most platformers have pre-made levels; some have players make their own. In Piclings, your photos are the basis of each level. Check out the game's trailer above.