Twisted Metal dev David Jaffe tweeted this first look at the booth art being prepared for the game's E3 outing next month. "BEHOLD: THE RISE OF SWEET BOT!!! Aka: a side of the still work in progress Twisted Metal E3 Booth. I'm loving it!" [davidscottjaffe]

Everything about Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning seems designed to lose my interest. There's the title, the high fantasy setting, the silly race names. The entire game seems like a pastiche of all of the action role-playing titles that came before it.

But then I played it and suddenly I was enthralled.

I suppose it stands to reason that a game developed by Big Huge Games with the help of Ken Rolston (The Elder Scrolls III and IV), R.A. Salvatore (famed sci-fi and fantasy novelist) and Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) would be anything but forgettable.

It's odd then that at first glance, second glance, long demo, it's still easy to dismiss it.

That's how I felt as I set through a demo of the game last week at Electronic Arts LA studio. Sean Dunn, studio manager at Big Huge Games, walked us through the backstory of the game, rolling out place settings and race names like Amalur, Almain, Varani, Ljosalfar, Dokkalfar. There were even a few I recognized like gnomes.

As he spoke the television filled with gameplay and video showing off a detailed, colorful world, but one not easily separated from its action role-playing game predecessors. He showed us some neat twists additions in his game, like the ability to sneak up on anyone and try to pickpocket, that getting caught can mean in-game jail time which can result in a fine or lost experience points.

That you can create weapons from crappier other weapons and then tweak five basic components of your creations resulting in something special, unique.

You can, while running up to folks in the city for quests, skip their conversation and skip straight to a text summary of your quest. When you loot a treasure chest you can go straight into an option to compare your existing weapons and even switch out what you're using straight from that menu.

There were a lot of tiny touches that perhaps only hardcore action RPG fans would notice. There were also some bigger ideas, like the notion that you are classless, that your abilities and the sort of character you are is drawn entirely from your choices of skills allowing you to create odd new classes like Shadow Master.

The game's underlying story draws in part on the notion that you are in a world where everyone lives according to pre-ordained fates but that you are fateless. You can, though, find these fates and use them to create special talents in your character.

It's something new, but wasn't enough to get me interested. In fact, I sort of put off trying the game during the nearly half-day event at EA. Fortunately, I finally settled down into a couch in a backroom and played.

While combat isn't anything entirely new it was instantly satisfying. It sort of felt like an amalgam of what I love about God of War and Diablo. There's that clicky-button mashing need to obliterate your enemies backed with gratifying, graphics and clever take downs and abilities.

My character, for instance, could teleport through people, leaving in his wake a poison trail, a trail that was absorbed by enemies as he passed through them. Armed with a chakram and knives, my character was able to toss out waves of damaging attacks. I could also sneak up on enemies and deliver devastating, visceral sneak attacks.

The game, designed as a solid PC role-playing title, worked so well on the Xbox 360 controller, that I wondered aloud how they would make it work as well on a computer. "We're working on that," I was told.

The graphics and backstory may not have a lot of instant appeal, but the fantastic combat system and colorful attacks and specials are sure to get gamers to stick around long enough to start caring and understanding about those things. And with a promised 60 hours of gameplay, it probably makes sense to slowly ramp that up over the course of the game.

There are four playable races, three class trees, each with 22 abilities to sort through. I played around with a few, like planting ice land mines or that venomous teleport, but there were many, many more I didn't get a chance to experience. That alone feels like it will make the game worthwhile.

In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood our friend Ezio's travels take him to Constantinople, heart of the Ottoman Empire, where no man's feet need touch the floor while seated. We know he's following in the footsteps of Assassin's Creed's Altair, but why?

Ubisoft promised us answers, and they're slowly letting them trickle out as we build to E3 2011. Why is Ezio travelling to Constantinople, other than how fun it is to say? He's on the hunt for five ancient artifacts that hold the key to the future of the Assassin's brotherhood. Along the way he'll spend some time seeing the sights, and meet colorful new characters like master assassin Yusuf Tazim, Prince Suleiman, and Sofia Sorto, who has a little thing for our Italian killer-for-hire.

You also get a chance to play as Altair himself. I've a feeling he has a little something to do with those hidden artifacts.

Ezio adds new skills and weapons to his arsenal as well in Revelations, including his age-ripened Eagle Sense, bomb crafting, and the Hook Blade, perfect for both stabbing and pretending you're playing BioShock Infinite.
Let's see, is there anything else? Oh, apparently U.S. customers that preorder from GameStop will receive some sort of Penny Arcade poster, which sounds nice.

And that's pretty much all we've got. *shakes press release upside-down* The answers are coming, they're just taking their own sweet time. Hey look, screenshots and concept art!

In another big win scored in the name of internet streaming gaming, PC players looking to give THQ's Red Faction: Armageddon a try before the game's June 6 release date are going to have to sign up for OnLive.

Don't bother looking on Steam or Direct2Drive, at least not until June 6. Until then the demo for the latest chapter in the Red Faction saga can only be found via OnLive. The game streaming platform has secured exclusive access to the Red Faction: Armageddon demo for both PC and Mac, so signing up for a free account at the OnLive website is the only way to play it.

If you've got the internet bandwidth, that's actually a major plus. OnLive's streaming technology runs the game on OnLive's servers, streaming what is essentially a real-time video of you playing to any compatible device. That means it'll run on your crappy little netbook, or your Mac. You also start playing immediately, without waiting on a download or installation.

And just because OnLive has the exclusive demo doesn't mean you have to purchase it on the OnLive platform. The company is using this opportunity to show how well the tech works with demos, delivering instant gratification to players across the country. After that, they actively encourage players to pick up the game somewhere else.

"Today marks a milestone for the videogame industry," said Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder and CEO, "Not only is this the first time a major game pre-release PC demo is available exclusively from OnLive, but it's the first time a game platform is encouraging gamers to buy a game on their preferred platform, whether or not that is OnLive. It shows the ubiquity of OnLive's patented technology, both as a frictionless way to check out games for all platforms, and as a game platform itself."

If you do want to purchase the game through OnLive it's available for preorder now for $49.95, and comes with the OnLive's Microconsole, a TV-based solution to streaming video games.

Get the OnLive-Exclusive Red Faction: Armageddon Demo [OnLive]

All we saw of Examu's girl-on-girl fighting game Arcana Heart 3 in North America was a lousy downloadable PlayStation 3 exclusive. Not only does the game come on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 in Europe, it's packed with simulated breasts. Curse you, Europe!

Limited to the other side of the pond and weighing in at £41.66 (around $70), the Arcana Heart 3 : Sugoi Oppai Fans Edition packs everything the all-girl fighting game fans could want in one tight little package. There's the game itself, of course, along with the 144 page Japanese Arcana Heart 3 artbook, the official soundtrack (exclusive to this edition), 12 art cards filled with special moves and secrets, and a mouse pad depicting Mei Fang and two of her close friends.

Am I jealous? Only a little bit. After all, if you've used on boobie mousepad you've pretty much used them all, which is why I try to avoid touching them. That, and this special edition is limited to 500 pieces, so it's not like Europeans will be running around everywhere flashing their fake anime girl chests about.

Still, it would have been nice to get a box or something for North America. I suppose I could always just import the region-free PlayStation 3 version if push came to shove.

Or I can just make my own limited edition version of Arcana Heart 3. That'll show em!

Commenter Shin Lord was so certain his post about video games and consoles we regret trading, selling, or losing would make it into Speak Up on Kotaku he made his own image. Cocky bastard, isn't he?

Parting ways with a video game or console is easy for some, but traumatic for others. Since gaming is an expensive hobby, I understand why people sell or trade their games. Very rarely have I done this, and usually I end up regretting it.

Back in high school I sold my Atari 2600 with a bunch of games to my neighbor, who had a crapload of little kids, for a measly $20. I regret doing that to this day.

What games do you regret getting rid of?

Ignore that this is a 3D game for Nintendo's latest portable. Ignore that it's been nearly a decade since we've seen a new title staring Joe Musashi. Embrace, instead, the fact that this is a Shinobi that fans of the 1987 side-scrolling arcade game may recognize and could come to love.

I only had about 15 minutes with the game during a week of playing games, doing interviews, watching presentations about all sorts of hotly anticipated, eagerly awaited games. But somehow Shinobi stands clear in my memory.

In the game, you take on the role of Jiro Musashi, the leader of the Oboro clan and father of Joe Mushashi, the star of the original Shinobi.

I played Shinobi, which is being developed by Griptonite, using the 3DS' thumbstick and face buttons. (We were told that D-pad gameplay will also be supported) Initially I played it with the 3D amped all of the way up, but soon realized that it added nothing to the gameplay. And, fortunately, it doesn't need to.

This is a Shinobi that leans heavily on the classic gameplay elements of that original arcade title that made it such a blast to play when I was in high school. This is a game that drops you back in the days of simple controls and a reliance on perfect timing.

You can block attacks if you time your attack correctly, you grab onto low hanging roofs, or certain ceilings to avoid attacks. You've got an array of weapons and moves, like the katana, throwing knives, magic attacks and even a grappling hook.

This is a game I'm going to enjoy picking through on my 3DS, playing and replaying from the many checkpoints until I nail the parries, the timed jumps, the wall climbing. All to bring in as many points as possible, a system that will certainly have me playing and replaying this game when it hits in September.

What we didn't get a chance to check out was the game's "exciting new features and experiences" which we were told were designed to take specific advantage of the 3DS. I believe one of those will likely be the horse riding scenes, which look like they could lean heavily on the 3D if implemented correctly.

Filter's gloomy rendition of "Happy Together" sets the perfect tone for the May 31 launch of inXile's co-op focused dungeon romp Hunted: The Demon's Forge.

Three men walk into bar: an American, a Swede and a—oh, dash it! You're not here for jokes. You're here to talk about games. Because this is Talk Amongst Yourselves, the official Kotaku forum. So just excuse me, and get on talking.

I'm an honest sucker for TAYpics that incorporate some of my favorite games. So thanks, lilmp89—and go get 'em Edy! If you too would like to explore the possibilities of combining classic illustration with games that look like classic illustration, try it here: #TAYpics.

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

Can a physics based platformer stand out—not to mention be a treat to play—on the iPhone? It can when you're piloting fine porcelain in a bizarre, hazardous dreamworld while playing Storm In A Teacup.

Storm In A Teacup is one of the latest games from iPhone and iPad publisher Chillingo, the people who sell Angry Birds and Cut the Rope games. It's developed by iPhone gaming vets Cobra Mobile, no stranger to making handsome, impressively detailed mobile fare, like the iBomber series.

Take the title Storm In A Teacup quite literally, for in this charming little physics-based puzzle-platformer, you play as Storm, who jumps and floats about in a man-sized teacup. Exactly how this teacup flies through the air, I'm not quite sure, but it moves like a lightly powered jetpack.

Players control the game by moving left and right via a pair of on-screen arrows, tapping the thrust button to levitate. Storm's teacup doesn't have much lift, however, so players need to learn the cup's flight intricacies, requiring some thumb finesse and double-jumping prowess.

Storm moves through nicely detailed levels collecting sugar cubes, finding keys required to unlock doorways, and rooting out its many collectible tchotchkes, ultimately reaching an end-of-level goal. Collecting all those trinkets is where this game's replay value comes in. Items are carefully squirreled away in levels, requiring exploration and smart thinkin'. I've found only a few.

Things to avoid include spiked floors and ceilings, grumpy storm clouds, pools of lava, and player-crushing barrels. Platformer staples like bounce pads and air jets complement Storm's teacup riding adventure.

Storm In A Teacup may not be remarkable for its mechanics, sound though they may be, but it should be praised for its fetching level designs, which often consist of simple, but cheery ropes, floating platforms and hidden tunnels. Visually, the game is an unexpected treat. Better still, there's some genuine challenge in here.

There's notable value in Chillingo's Storm In A Teacup, which boasts more than 40 levels worth of light, smartly designed platforming thrills in a 99 cent package. Grab it at iTunes for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Storm In A Teacup [iTunes]