The video game version of The Adventures of Tintin isn't always a platformer, but when it is it feels a lot like a richer, more complex version of the old Super Mario games I love to play.

Working your way across the screen as the titular Tintin, down the screen, up the screen, from a side-on view, makes up about 70 percent of the game, Ubisoft tells me. The rest of the time you'll shift gameplay for levels that have you flying planes or getting into sword fights.

I didn't get a chance to check out any of the non-platforming elements of Tintin when I saw it here in New York this month. Instead I slid on a pair of active shutter 3D glasses and watched as a Ubisoft Fragdoll played through a couple of single-player levels on a Playstation 3.

Even if I weren't already a lifelong fan of Georges Remi's adventurous young reporter, I would have been drawn to the game's look which, while not completely capturing Remi's ultra-clean ligne-clair art style, is still very reminiscent of it.

There are times when the gameplay shows just the area that Tintin and his canine sidekick, Snowy, are walking or running through, but chunks of the gameplay I saw also showed a screen filled with rooms and corridors waiting to be explored. In these moments I felt like I was viewing a Dutch version of Super Mario Bros., watching a reporter avoid bad guys, rather than a plumber stomp on Goombas. The game will have more than 20 environments. The ones I watched unfold before me all took place on Captain Haddock's ship, infested with enemies.

In the levels, Tintin climbed up and down ladders, jumped between platforms and occasionally took out enemies with banana peels. In one scene, a bad guy stepped on a peel, slid cartoonishly across the room and into a wall, falling backwards onto his back, his legs sticking straight up in the air. I could hear a faint coocoo sound as stars floated about his fallen form.

Later the perspective shifted, showing Tintin running toward the screen as water chased him through the hallways of the ship. Further into the level, Tintin has to make his way up to the nose of the now-sinking ship, which is jutting straight into the air. Water is rising as Tintin climbs to safety.

Tintin will drown if the water gets to him, we're told.

The entire campaign will take under 20 hours to complete and can, oddly, only be played alone. I'm so surprised by this bit of single-player news that later I emailed Ubisoft to verify it was true. It is. Fortunately, the game does include a bit of multiplayer, all found in the game's cooperative mode.

The two-player mode has an interesting premise: The level has you playing through Captain Haddock's alcohol-fueled dreams. That helps explain the disjointed nature of the levels and some curious abilities, like being able to turn into a dog when you walk through certain doors.

In the cooperative play I witnessed, Tintin, who can use a grappling hook in this mode, was controlled by one player while Haddock, who has his extra strength to rely on, was controlled by another. The level design forced players to work together to make it through a scene.

What I didn't get a chance to see was the single-player only challenge mode, which includes a lot of "exotic gameplay elements" I was told. This is also where players will be able to use Kinect or Move controllers if they'd like to.

The game is due out around Christmas on the DS, PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

The video game version of The Adventures of Tintin isn't always a platformer, but when it is it feels a lot like a richer, more complex version of the old Super Mario games I love to play.

Working your way across the screen as the titular Tintin, down the screen, up the screen, from a side-on view, makes up about 70 percent of the game, Ubisoft tells me. The rest of the time you'll shift gameplay for levels that have you flying planes or getting into sword fights.

I didn't get a chance to check out any of the non-platforming elements of Tintin when I saw it here in New York this month. Instead I slid on a pair of active shutter 3D glasses and watched as a Ubisoft Fragdoll played through a couple of single-player levels on a Playstation 3.

Even if I weren't already a lifelong fan of Georges Remi's adventurous young reporter, I would have been drawn to the game's look which, while not completely capturing Remi's ultra-clean ligne-clair art style, is still very reminiscent of it.

There are times when the gameplay shows just the area that Tintin and his canine sidekick, Snowy, are walking or running through, but chunks of the gameplay I saw also showed a screen filled with rooms and corridors waiting to be explored. In these moments I felt like I was viewing a Belgian version of Super Mario Bros., watching a reporter avoid bad guys, rather than a plumber stomp on Goombas. The game will have more than 20 environments. The ones I watched unfold before me all took place on Captain Haddock's ship, infested with enemies.

In the levels, Tintin climbed up and down ladders, jumped between platforms and occasionally took out enemies with banana peels. In one scene, a bad guy stepped on a peel, slid cartoonishly across the room and into a wall, falling backwards onto his back, his legs sticking straight up in the air. I could hear a faint coocoo sound as stars floated about his fallen form.

Later the perspective shifted, showing Tintin running toward the screen as water chased him through the hallways of the ship. Further into the level, Tintin has to make his way up to the nose of the now-sinking ship, which is jutting straight into the air. Water is rising as Tintin climbs to safety.

Tintin will drown if the water gets to him, we're told.

The entire campaign will take under 20 hours to complete and can, oddly, only be played alone. I'm so surprised by this bit of single-player news that later I emailed Ubisoft to verify it was true. It is. Fortunately, the game does include a bit of multiplayer, all found in the game's cooperative mode.

The two-player mode has an interesting premise: The level has you playing through Captain Haddock's alcohol-fueled dreams. That helps explain the disjointed nature of the levels and some curious abilities, like being able to turn into a dog when you walk through certain doors.

In the cooperative play I witnessed, Tintin, who can use a grappling hook in this mode, was controlled by one player while Haddock, who has his extra strength to rely on, was controlled by another. The level design forced players to work together to make it through a scene.

What I didn't get a chance to see was the single-player only challenge mode, which includes a lot of "exotic gameplay elements" I was told. This is also where players will be able to use Kinect or Move controllers if they'd like to.

The game is due out around Christmas on the DS, PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Who patrols the streets when Batman is out of town? Who is next in succession for the title of Clown Prince of Crime? Everybody, if Gotham City Impostors has anything to say about it.

In Monolith's upcoming downloadable multiplayer shooter, hordes of masked vigilantes take to the streets armed with whatever guns, gadgets, and gear they can carry. Their enemy is the most insane clown posse of them all, the Jokerz, whacked out on happy juice and ready to cause some less-than-serious damage.

This Comic-Con trailer for the game is quite impressive and rather amusing, but it's still just CG. I want to see what I'll be playing once Gotham City Impostors hits the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and the PC next year.

Commenter Hongo has had it up to here with people denying devices the label 'portable' simply because they can't fit in their pants pocket. He'd prepared a portable primer for today's Speak Up on Kotaku.

port•a•ble /ˈpôrtəbəl/
Adjective: Able to be easily carried or moved.
Noun: A version of something that can be easily carried.

By those definitions, that can apply to anything: From an iPad to a laptop to various power tools to a book, you name it.

Portable ≠ Pocket Friendly

So why is it that when a handheld system can't be carried in your pants pocket, many people seem to toss portability out the window? The DS, 3DS, PSP and PS Vita are all handhelds I would not consider pants pocket friendly. Heck, even the original bulky Game Boy wasn't what I would call a pocket friendly device period. Almost everyone I knew had a carrying case for it and that's how it was transported from place to place.

I have often seen different comments in stories on why this device isn't a handheld or that device isn't a portable: All because it can't fit in your pants. All because of your pants, you say? Yes, your pants. I'm shocked that any guy above the age of 14 can even find room for a DS/PSP when my own pants pockets are already full with a phone, wallet, keys, pocket change, etc. I couldn't even cram my PSP or DS in a pocket if I wanted to unless I was wearing cargo pants or something. Maybe my back pocket, but I hate having things in my back pockets.

The PSP, DS, 3DS and PS Vita are all handheld devices, but I wouldn't ever say that portable and pocket friendly are mutually exclusive, but for some reason many people do so maybe it's just me. If you can carry it inside a coat pocket, jacket pocket or a bag and hold it on your hands, I still say it's portable: Pants pockets be damned.

What's YOUR take on the whole handheld/portable/pocket friendly device debate? Do you think that if it can't fit in a pants pocket it loses the definition of portable and doesn't deserve to be called one? Or do you think that if you can easily pick it up for transport that it's still a portable device?

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.