When your last game cover features your sport's greatest player ever, what do you do for an encore? If you're 2K Sports, you get three of the greatest players ever.

Michael Jordan will return as the cover star for NBA 2K12, and will be joined by Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. All three will receive their own cover, illustrated by the noted sports artist Adam Larson.

"We wanted to bring Michael Jordan back, but even if we wanted to do something different, I don't think we could have." said Jason Argent, the 2K Sports vice president of marketing, noting the expectations created by featuring such a player. "So our go was bringing Michael Jordan back, but then, how do you take it up a notch?"

For a generation of basketball fans, Larry, Magic and Michael are a holy trinity that defined the NBA over two decades, from Bird and Johnson's Celtics-Lakers rivalry of the 1980s to Jordan's championship dominance of the 1990s. Combined, the three won 15 NBA titles in a 19-year span.

Deploying three legends to sell the game is also a smart move considering the current state of the league. Unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement, the NBA's ownership has locked out the players, and league watchers are pessimistic that the season will begin on time.

Labor disputes are tremendously off-putting to fans, so featuring a current player would at minimum be a reminder of that and the fact he can't be seen in real-life action. Further, the most logical choice among current players would have been someone like Dirk Nowitzki, who is a champion and future hall-of-famer but as a player simply cannot follow Jordan's act.

Few can. At this time last year 2K Sports already faced questions of how it would or even could follow Jordan. So then Argent knows they'll have an even bigger task in an encore for these three.

"Do we fear getting pushed into a corner? Not at all," Argent said. "In a way it's a better viewpoint. You're not looking at the game of basketball from one point in time, you're looking at the whole game of basketball and its history."

Jordan's return to the cover raises the question of if "The Jordan Challenge," NBA 2K11's 10-game recreation of his most memorable performances ever, will also come back. Argent was deliberately vague.

"We have a bunch more stuff to share later. What I would say is, we're not going to rest on that," Argent said. "That was such a great thing for us, a great hit for the fans, and we want to bring that to the next level, and bring the key feature set to the next level. The details are forthcoming, but suffice to say, fans will not be disappointed."

A pre-order bonus could be a hint at what that might entail. Preorders will receive codes for two classic teams for use in the game, the 1990-1991 Golden State Warriors of Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond, and the 2000-2001 Sacramento Kings of Chris Webber, Vlade Divac and Jason Williams.

NBA 2K11 featured more than a dozen historic teams, primarily for "The Jordan Challenge" but usable throughout the game. These Warriors and Kings teams both lost to the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals.

All three covers will be on shelves but, naturally, 2K Sports hopes that many fans will reserve a copy to ensure they pick up the one with their favorite player.

"We wanted to do something big and unique and make a departure from the traditional brand look," Argent said of the covers' visual styles and subjects. "We listen to our fans and what they want, and I think they spoke last year with the response to Michael Jordan. The fans we talk to have steered us in this direction."

In case you've been waiting patiently for The Legend of Zelda Symphony Concert, good news! You'll only have to keep waiting until October...unless you're not in L.A.

Nintendo has announced via press release that the tour will kick off October 21st in Los Angeles, California at the Pantages Theatre. From there, it will go on hiatus until 2012. Tickets in L.A. will be $35, on sale August 1st at Ticketmaster. The concert will consist of a 70 piece orchestra, along with a choir. They will perform "new arrangemtents of a variety of songs" from across the Zelda series' 25 year history.

Since the announcement of the concert tour at this year's E3, we have heard precious few details about the when and the where. This press release did not include details about dates for the 2012 leg of the tour, nor did it include other countries, cities, or regions that the tour will visit. We do know for certain that in addition to North America, the tour will hit Japan and Europe.

"The Legend of Zelda has few peers in the pantheon of video game giants, and the games and their music have always shared a deep connection," Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, says in a press release. "Through these concerts, fans nationwide will be able to gather and show their love for the quarter century of action, adventure and excitement that The Legend of Zelda games have brought to their lives."

So this guy walks into a bar. It's a bar where all people do is come in to enjoy each others company and talk about video games. As a matter of fact, this place was called Talk Amongst Yourselves. There are plenty of people here who love to discuss games, so please, feel at home.

Before we're off, let's take some time to thank Knurft for today's TAYpic.

To get your TAYpic featured here, be sure to submit your images to #TAYpics, and please keep submitting until you're out of good ideas, at which time, we recommend you keep submitting anyway. If you still need more instruction, check out this thread for details on how you can be a TAY superstar.

Puyo Puyo!! | TOKYO, JAPAN: Members of idol group Idoling!!! at a promotional event for Sega's latest puzzler. (Photo: 4Gamer)

Is This the World's Oldest Gamer? Old people play video games. By old, maybe that means sixty years old? Seventy? How about 99 years old.

This Concept Art Has a Demon's Soul In addition to a bunch of other stuff, Hong Kong artist Michael Ting Yu Chang has also done some video game work with Japanese developers From Software.

Mortal Kombat Statues for Differing Tastes and Budgets Collectible company Syco have picked up a license to release Mortal Kombat statues, so release some Mortal Kombat statues they shall.

The Uncanny Valley is Now Scientific Fact The notion of the "Uncanny Valley", where artificial people are more disturbing the closer they come to "reality", has been around for ages. But now, thanks to a research team in San Diego, it's bonafide science.

The Real History of the Triforce It's one of the most iconic designs in the history of video games: three golden triangles combined to form a single larger one. The Triforce. The object that lies at the heart of The Legend of Zelda.

We had a chance to check out the Playstation 3 version of Battlefield 3 earlier this week. We also spent more time playing through the game's Operation Metro mulitplayer map. Here's a quick run through of a single, segmented-map in the game's multiplayer.

Operation Metro, we were told, was designed to look a bit like Paris. The map has four areas to move through in the Attack and Defend mode we played. In each area you need to arm charges and defend them until they go off to open the next area. Electronic Arts say they're using this particular map to show off the game's ability to deliver a wide spectrum of scale in its maps. The first area is a big open grassy quad. The next is an underground, dark subway system. Then you have a ticket counter station and finally you're fighting in an inner city that's already been torn apart by war.

There's a lot to pick up in this video. You can catch a glimpse of some of the game's different classes: Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon. This particular map only includes one vehicle, found early on in the game's initial map. But as you can see, there's plenty of shit going on here to make up for the lack of wheels. Pay special attention to the end of this video when a piece of a building's facade collapses and kills a player.

Death by building!

Make sure to check out the leaked Alpha gameplay from BF3 that hit last night too.

The last time I saw Kevin O'Leary he had a beard. A tier-one beard. These day's he's wrangling press for Battlefield 3. Right now he's walking me behind a curtain on the second floor of a New York City ballroom to a Playstation 3 set-up on a back room television.

They won't allow me to play the game myself, but this will be the first time I've had a chance to see the eagerly-anticipated Battlefield 3 playing on a console in person. I, and probably lots of you, had a chance to see the game played on a PS3 during an appearance on Jimmy Fallon's late night show. But I asked for a chance to check the game out to see how the console version compared to the computer one in person.

Later I went back and played through a multiplayer level of the game on a computer, just to refresh my memory. (Check out a quick video tour of that map here.)

Initially there isn't a lot of difference to notice. O'Leary is guiding his soldier through the familiar Fault-Line series of gameplay shown off on Fallon and elsewhere. Another soldier shoulders his way into a garage, works his way through the building and then out into a parking lot where the group is ambushed.

Things look very similar, but then I start to notice some subtle differences. The lighting is the biggest difference. In the Playstation 3 version the shadows cast across the opening sequence are sharper, there's less subtlety in the way the light is diffused. During the gunfight that takes place outside in the parking lot there seems to be a lot less smoke and dust on the PS3 version. When my teammates fire, their barrels don't spew out smoke that quickly dissipates. In the PC version the entire parking lot seems to be clouded with debris, smoke and dust, in the PS3 version the same scene seems clearer, cleaner.

But these are the sort of differences you'd only notice if you were looking for them. At first blush, the Playstation 3 version of Battlefield 3 is every bit as impressive as the computer version. The fidelity of the urban battlefield is overwhelming, the nuance of details found in the buildings, cars and make up of the city serve as a sort of camouflage for the action that unravels during the gunfight. It's hard to spot enemies until they open fire.

Most importantly, the PS3 version won't disappoint fans who found the PC version of the game thrilling. While I wasn't able to play through the level, O'Leary pointed out some minor, obvious differences, between the controls of the PC and PS3 version. The game will use the directional pad, for instance, to allow you to turn on a weapon-mounted flashlight. It also changes your weapon's firing mode and brings up your character's special kit in multiplayer.

As my short time in front of the PS3 version of the game wrapped up, I ask O'Leary if we can expect to see Move support on the game.

"Right now we're focused on shipping the best game in October," he responds, completely side-stepping the question.

It sounds like the game's next big showing will be at Gamescom in Germany next month. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play the game on a console there.

Many of us watched as the space shuttle Atlantis rocketed into space earlier this month, marking the last time a space shuttle will ever leave the Earth. Early this morning Atlantis came home.

Nintendo has trademarked a whole host of Wii U titles. Most are fairly obvious, such as "Wii Party U", but with one glaring miss: Nintendo trademarked "Mii U" and not "Wii Mii U". Oh no, quick Nintendo, quick!

Here is the full list, courtesy of website Siliconera:

Wii U + logo
Mii U
Wii Fit U
Wii Sports U
Wii Music U
Wii Party U
Wii Play U
WiiWare U
Wii Balance Board U
Balance Wii Board U
Wii Wheel U
Wii Zapper U
Wii U Fit
Wii U Music
Wii U Party
Wii U Sports
Wii U Play
Wii U Ware
Wii U Balance Board
Balance Wii U Board
Wii U Wheel
Wii U Zapper
Wii Speak U
Wii U Speak
Shield Pose

This isn't confirmation that Nintendo is making, say, Wii Party U. However, the trademarks are so obvious, it would be more surprising if there wasn't a game called Wii U Sports.

Many of these trademarks are protective squatting to prevent other companies from taking them.

The one trademark that sticks out is "Shield Pose". That is the name of a demo Nintendo showed at this year's E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles.

A Gallery Of Wii U Trademarks Filed By Nintendo [Siliconera]

Launching today, an iPad optimized version of Sid Meier's Pirates! is available in the App Store for US$3.99. That's a limited time deal until July 25. After that, it's priced at $6.99. [iTunes]

Yesterday, it was revealed that Goichi Suda of No More Heroes fame is working on a new game called Lollipop Chainsaw. It's about an 18-year-old cheerleader who kills zombies, so it's less rah-rah and more slice-slice.

The first images of the game were blurry magazine shots. These images are much better!

Lollipop Chainsaw looks to be in line with No More Heroes' poppy, yet violent vibe. This game seems to amp up the cute, though. Glittery hearts and a zombie-slaying Valley Girl? Sure, why not.

『LOLLIPOP CHAINSAW（ロリポップチェーンソー）』須田剛一氏が贈る猛毒ゾンビ青春アクション！ [ファミ通.com]