The live action Tekken movie adaptation is bringing its version of the long-running fighting game series to a disc format near you this summer. Starting July 19, you can own Tekken on DVD, Blu-ray or some combination of the two.

This is director Dwight Little's take on Namco's fighting game franchise, a movie with a plot that goes something like this:

The year is 2039. World wars have destroyed everything and territories are run by corporations, the mightiest – and cruelest — of which is Tekken. Jin Kazama (John Foo) witnesses the death of his mother Jun (Tomita) by Tekken in the slums known as Anvil. Vowing vengeance, and armed only with his street smarts and raw fighting skills, he enters a dangerous and potentially deadly combat tournament, where he must defeat the world's most elite fighters to become the "King of the Iron Fist."

For a taste of what Tekken the movie looks like, browse the gallery above, which is peppered with nipples both male and female.

I knew I was going to have a hard time deciding whether Brink was any good. I still can't say it is.

I can't say it's bad yet, either.

I've played Brink for several days. It's a hard game for me to judge.

Others have judged it, of course. It's been given wildly divergent review scores. I've played the game through, completed both of its campaigns and felt confident about how the game works to create a 10-minute video to show you how it works.

But I still can't give you a straight answer if you ask me if the game is worth buying.

The first problem is only sort of a problem: I'm no expert about this kind of thing. Brink is a class-based first-person shooter, just like the wildly popular Team Fortress 2, which I last played on or close to the day Team Fortress 2 came out. I'm not at all the kind of player who's ready for an eight-on-eight battle, with each player utilizing their class role to the utmost. We've got the Security, who are the police of this floating city called The Ark, against the Resistance, a ragtag group who just might be terrorists.

I had expected my liability, my unfamiliarity with team shooters, to be a plus. One of Brink's innovations is its dynamic mission wheel that, on the fly and in the middle of a heated mission, can show you which things a character of your class can do and which of those are most worth doing. So far, in matches I've played of the game with computer-controlled allies and with real people, that wheel has worked. It's taken the place of having an expert player sitting next to me on my couch, suggesting what I can do next.

The mission wheel has helped me target key objectives, like a safe that needs to be cracked or a pillar that needs to be blown up. It's also helped me figure out what best to do when I'm playing a support role. It's shown me that there are machine gun nests that need building or other characters who need guarding.

The developers of Brink might as well call the mission wheel the Training Wheel, because I suspect that, as I get better at Brink, I'll use it less. I don't need it when I switch mid-mission to playing as a medic, since I'm pretty good at sticking with other characters on my team and healing them—the wheel's directions toward the next wounded players are irrelevant. It's been a good back-up though, and it proved most handy when I played the game with strangers. Instead of chatting with them to sort out their needs I could check the wheel, an advantage considering that they weren't stopping to strategize. It was best for me to use the wheel so I could figure out how to save them from their gung-ho selves.

The second problem is that Brink feels like the second day of college right now. The game is brand-new and not exactly the experience I imagined it would be. It's also not the experience I expect it will be remembered for. The game marries single-player and online, essentially allowing any of its 16 campaign missions to be played solo, with seven computer-controlled allies against eight enemies, or with up to 15 other human beings. You can, as I did, leave your campaign settings open, which means you may wind up starting a mission with real people in it, or have real people tumble into your match. The presence of human players transforms the game, for better and worse.

Played alone, Brink is ok. The teammate artificial intelligence is weak, but the enemies aren't much smarter. You can be a hero and win most of the game's adventures on your own, relying on most of the bots in the game to kill each other while you do the work of hacking, or setting charges or whatever. I, for example, was the only player on my team of otherwise computer-controlled heroes, who was smart enough to put a turret at a choke-point of one map, preventing the enemy force from advancing. Human enemies would have figured out how to flank me; the computer enemies did not. Sometimes its your computer-controlled buddies who let you down. Other times, the disappointment is the enemy.

But who is to say that relying on artificial intelligence will be the typical Brink experience? Over the weekend, I played about half of the game's campaign with another games reporter. Our two real brains were too much of a match for the computer-controlled enemies on the tougher missions. We played differently than I had with computer-controlled allies. He'd guard me when I was hacking a computer in an airport. I'd keep healing him as we sprinted, him in the lead, toward an escape route. When we played with a third person, the experience was even better, except when our connections were lagging. Occasionally the game did choke, stuttering its frames and turning into an unplayable slideshow, though this problem didn't seem to correspond to the number of people who played. (It's also an issue that's supposedly set to be addressed by a patch, though you never know how those things will go.)

One time, last Sunday, I was playing the game by myself. At least, I thought I was playing by myself. I was in a tough mission that I'd yet to complete without a real person helping out. I was struggling for a while, when suddenly things started going my team's way. It took me a little longer to realize that two strangers had joined my game. Real people. Helping out.

I still haven't experienced Brink will a full crew of human players. I imagine the game will feel even more alien to the thing I played via my Xbox 360 this past weekend. Brink has been better when I've had people playing with me, but who is to say that putting people in every role will improve everything? This experience my turn again. I'm not a highly skilled class-based team shooter player, and I fear that a week from now, any improvement of the Brink experience that may be gained thanks to the presence of other gamers might be off-set by the punishing skill exercised by human players. I do fine in Brink right now, maybe thanks only to the limited artificial intelligence. A week from now, will I be dying from well-thrown grenades and compromised by so many disguised operatives that I'll be shelving this game alongside my copy of Team Fortress 2? Or will that training wheel save me again?

Should you buy Brink now? I'd wait. It's just now touching the oxygen of being played by gamers online. Let the chemical reactions take. Brink today is not the game Brink will be in a week; the game today may be better, it may be worse, but it's temporary. For now, I'll give you a shrug and tell you: I'm just not sure.

If you're going to play a character named Noob, why not act the part?

Mortal Kombat's Noob Saibot got his name from the last names of game creators John Tobias and Ed Boon spelled backwards. So it really was a stroke of luck that he get stuck with such an unfortunate first name. Noob gained a little more street cred in Mortal Kombat: Deception, when it was revealed that he was the original Sub-Zero, also known as Bi-Han, but no one really cared. A Noob is a noob, and that's all he'll ever be.

Video game masochists, steel yourselves for Dark Souls, the closest thing that you're going to get to a Demon's Souls sequel. A game that will come to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this October, according to this brand new trailer.

In addition to nailing down a release window for the fall, this new look at Dark Souls showcases the many ways in which we can die in From Software's next brutally difficult role-playing game. We can be crushed by rolling boulders, stomped upon by giant iron knights, burned alive by dragon breath and sliced to bits by swinging pendulum scythes. Looks fun!

We'll have more new details on Dark Souls very, very soon.

In Capcom's latest viral video for Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, an unprofessional news anchor completely loses his head when a remote report on the "war of horror" goes awry.

In less completely silly news, Capcom today revealed Rebecca Chambers as the seventh playable character in the 3DS version of Resident Evil 4 and 5's Mercenaries multiplayer mode. Rebecca first appeared in the original Resident Evil as a member of the STARS Bravo team, in charge of rear security. I couldn't imagine anyone better suited to cover your ass when Mercenaries 3D drops next month.

Johnny Depp does a great job playing an off-kilter buccaneer in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but can a pile of LEGO bricks—a pile of virtual ones, no less—nail the performance in a new video game? I checked the brand new LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game and, well, they nailed it.

We'll have more on the new Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, DS, 3DS, and Wii game soon. But for now, marvel at Depp and LEGO Depp.

One of the writers of Portal 2, Erik Wolpaw, gave a talk last week at NYU's Game Center. You may have become aware of this because of the number of stories that ushered forth from the talk, like Wolpaw's passion for Rick the Adventure Sphere or why Chell doesn't speak. Or perhaps you were one of the dozens of people who were forced to stand outside the at-capacity lecture hall.

Now you can watch the whole talk online, hosted by NYU's Frank Lantz. Superfans should notice the call out to Kotaku's own Stephen Totilo and part-time-own Leigh Alexander.

NYU Lecture Series [Gamecenter.NYU.edu]

With the ten year anniversary of the release of the original Xbox shooter Halo looming, Titan Books is preparing to publish a collection of art from the series.

We asked the publisher to send us a few examples of what people will find inside Halo: The Great Journey: The Art of Building Worlds. The book includes more than 400 images including sketches, commentary and concept art pulled from all stages of development. Among the collection are pictures of characters, weapons and the landscape of the Halo universe.

The book is set to hit stores on Oct. 18 for $29.95 ( £24.99 ).

Now onto the gallery. (Don't forget to click on the bottom right of each image to see the full, big image.)

In Splash Damage's Brink, rival factions do battle over the fate of a post-apocalyptic floating city called The Ark. Judging by the critical reaction of some video game critics, The Ark may have already sunk.

Brink's intriguing combination of class-based team shooting a free-running movement have kept it high on gamers' radar throughout its lengthy development cycle. It's distinctive visual style, unique setting, and countless character customization options only fueled the fires of anticipation.

Now the game is live in North America, and as gamers run rampant over The Ark for the first time, the assembled game critics have already been there, done that, and painted an often disparaging picture of the future of this floating utopia.

1UP

Brink is unfinished. And that doesn't mean it's full of technical problems. Well, it's got those too. But mostly, it's just an unpolished, poorly executed mess of ideas. Wait, let me temper that. There are times when Brink looks like it's going to break out of its shell. There are times where the fairly interesting and cool (honestly!) ideas seem to be just about to bubble up and make the game worth playing. And then, suddenly and without warning, they're pushed back into the murky depths under the boot of poor design choices and lack of polish. It's exceedingly disappointing. Of course, for a game to be truly disappointing, it has to have potential. And Brink has more potential than it knows what to do with. (Note: Metacritic converts 1UP's D letter grade to a score of 25)

Joystiq

Here's one of the first major problems with Brink's objective-based structure: Each level that a player earns lets them unlock a new ability. Though there are a few permanent boosts the player can spend their unlocks on, most of these abilities are class-specific, meaning eventually, you're going to find a class you like and spend most of your points on it. Naturally, you'll have a predilection to play as that class — but should you refuse to switch your class to suit the objective, you're going to feel like your services aren't really required three-quarters of the time.

IGN

Brink's one shining aspect is SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain). Using SMART, holding a single button lets you navigate up walls, over obstacles, and through the game world. Depending on your body size, you can do more or less with movement, but overall this finesse is fantastic. Nothing in Brink feels quite as good as sliding under gunfire into someone, taking them out with a shotgun. However, it's easy to forget which size your character is in first-person perspective, as movement abilities don't change dramatically. While the Large size allows miniguns and shotguns, they still move only slightly slower than the Medium size. Only Small characters can really burst through levels, leaping off of walls and finding clever passageways.

GamePro

My central beef here is that anemic feel to the action. I love complexity in games like this, and strategizing how to utilize the varying skills of the different player classes to achieve your goals. But when the core action doesn't feel good, it kind of weakens the entire venture. When I shoot an enemy, especially in the head, I want them dead. Not laying on the ground waiting for a medic to revive them, dead. Especially when I pop someone in the head. If there is a cardinal rule of shooters, it should be that no one survives headshots. No one.

Destructoid

While some of the levels have a more even chance of success for either side, I have a feeling there are certain stages that players are going to eventually refuse to play, rage-quitting should they find themselves on the wrong side. Had Brink employed something similar to Killzone 3 — where objectives constantly shift and are evenly split between teams — it might have worked. Instead, the game has a totally bizarre flow where even if a team is dominating an enemy and wins two objectives, they can still lose a hard-fought match because they failed the third imbalanced requirement.

Guardian

Brink deserves to be ranked among the finest co-op games available. As a multiplayer experience, it is exquisite. But as mentioned earlier, it falters if played solo. While all the modes can be played in single-player, the bots that act as stand-ins for other players are a poor replacement. It certainly isn't the case that gamers who buy Brink will feel ripped off if they don't have access to their console's (or PC's) online network. But until you've fought both with and against living opponents in Brink, you have yet to sample the best of what it has to offer.

I've been impressed with SpyParty since the day I first played it, but soon you'll no longer have to take my word for it. The game's creator, Chris Hecker, is about to pull a Minecraft and launch a $15 beta.

You'll be able to join by signing up at an official web page (this one). Hecker will then start sending out invites over the next few weeks.

Those who pay $15 for the beta will receive all updated versions of the game, including its officially-released form. So you won't need to buy it all over again.

SpyParty is a two-player game that pits one person as a spy and another as a sniper. The spy player must blend in with computer-controlled characters, all of them attending a party, where the spy must smoothly complete a handful of missions (bug the ambassador, poison a drink, etc.) The sniper player gets to watch the party from outside, training their sniper scope and laser sight on any of the guests. The sniper gets one shot to ID the spy and shoot. The bullet won't miss, but they'd best be correct about who they shoot. It's subtle, complicated and clever.

A match of SpyParty is nerve-wracking. As a spy, you have to worry about any little hitch in your character's movement that just might give everything away. As the sniper, you have that one shot, so you keep doubting.

"My most important goal for the Early-Access Beta is to tune and balance the game to as close to perfect as I can get it, and to make it as deeply player-skill focused as I can," Hecker told me. "Basically, I'm trying to make a Counter-Strike or a Starcraft II here, at least in terms of the importance of player-skill to the outcome of a match. Those kinds of games need (and had) long-term large-scale betas for tuning and balancing, and the same is true for SpyParty."

The beta will be for Windows PC players only, for now. Hecker isn't sure of the specs required, but he said he plays it on a two-year-old laptop (and not a beast of one, as I can attest from having played the game at multiple trade shows).

The initial beta build will essentially be the version Hecker showed to long lines of fans at the PAX East show in March. It will consist of three maps (think: party rooms), six missions ("Bug Ambassador, Contact Double Agent, Transfer Microfilm, Swap Statue, Seduce Target, and Inspect Statues. Two more are half done, Poison Drink and Steal Plans"), three game types ("Call Your Shot, where the Spy has to complete N missions and the Sniper knows which ones (the missions and N depend on the map and skill levels), Subset, where the Spy has to complete N of M missions chosen in advance, and the Sniper only knows the M missions, and Any Subset, which is like Subset, but where the Spy can pick the missions opportunistically as he or she plays"), and 20 or so characters ("all the ugly prototype art everyone loves to hate.") There will be a lobby for text-chatting and primitive matchmaking, with more traditional matchmaking services being added as the beta continues.

In the first phase of the beta, which will start "very soon, maybe within weeks," Hecker will start adding five to 10 players at time. Throughout the spring and summer he'll add bigger and bigger groups of people and is considering running contests to let some people who have signed up skip ahead. Everyone who signs up should be playing by early fall, at the latest. He hopes to eventually have thousands of beta testers. Everyone will compete online at first, with LAN and player server support only coming later.

One of his reasons for doing the paid beta was simply because so many people have told him, at places like PAX East, that they'd pay for the game even in its raw, programmer-art state. "[That] kind of blew me away," he said. "Combine that phenomenon with the knowledge that I had to do a large open beta anyway, and it could mean I don't have to take any investment money at all, which would be amazing, because even friends and family investments come with strings attached. I think games like Minecraft and Overgrowth have really opened up this funding model for indies. I have no idea if it will work for SpyParty, but if it does, that will allow me to make the game exactly the game I think it deserves to be. My fingers are crossed."

Hecker still has no release date for the game. As he has intimated, the game is enjoyable as it is. It just looks crude and doesn't work too well when an expert player competes with a novice, but those are the exact areas that Hecker wants to explore next.

If you're interested, go sign up.

You could soon be playing the game and look just like this guy.