Which is good news, because $15 for three slices would be a rip-off if they were new.

GameStop selling used... WHAT? [Reddit]

a) Enhanced with bonus features
b) Remastered from the ground up to take advantage of the platform's strengths
c) Delayed until July 24

—-

ANSWER: C

You may not know this, but Conan O'Brien's sidekick Andy Richter played several characters in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Here they are in action.

Red 5's Firefall is an upcoming shooter whose development is being led by Mark Kern, former Team Lead on World of Warcraft. All we've seen lately about the game is some cosplay, so let's get back to basic with gameplay footage. Two hours of it.

[thanks Tony!]

Or is it a protest for Half-Life 3? Whatever.

The point being, This weekend over 30,000 members of a Steam group will sit down and play Half-Life 2. Calling themselves "A Call for Communication", the group says "we have decided to gain Valve's attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication."

That "better communication" would come in the form of any communication as to the whereabouts of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or as it's more commonly believed to be these days, simply Half-Life 3.

Will it work? Probably not. But hey, any excuse to play through Half-Life 2 again is a good excuse!

A Call for Communication [Steam]

Boring. Bland. Linear. Those are three of the kinder things that can be said of Final Fantasy XIII, a game so poor it needed a direct sequel just to salvage some brand integrity. They're also disarmingly simple, and don't really get to the heart of just why the game was so disappointing to so many.

This Gamasutra piece by Christian Nutt does, though. Taking inspiration from Red Letter Media's breakdown of the Star Wars prequels, Nutt goes to town on Square Enix's big-budget RPG.

The Star Wars prequels are full of things we recognize from the original trilogy, but divorced from any dramatic intent. For example, Plinkett astutely points out that light sabers are incredibly overused in the newer films, so much so that fights lose their uniqueness and tension—the constant battles becoming simple, garish light shows. Moments from the original trilogy are deliberately referred to, but without any parallel in meaning, just in form.

So, too, is Final Fantasy XIII filled with Final Fantasy Stuff—most notably and stupidly, crystals—and it's clear that all of that junk is there because the developers assume that it has to be there, not because it enriches the world or the game's play experience.

"The new films just borrow and recycle from the original ideas, as if there's no way to create anything new," says Plinkett. And that's what hamstrings Final Fantasy XIII, too.

Hell, the game's director, Motomu Toriayama, asked character designer Tetsuya Nomura for "someone like a female version of Cloud from FFVII."

That is not vision.

And unlike our own Michael Fahey's thoughts on the subject, Final Fantasy XIII-2 doesn't fare much better.

It's a cash-in, designed to scrape up the detritus left after a massive production that resulted in a lot of waste (including enough production art for a second game, and an expensive engine that the developer has already deemed all but useless) and do something with it.

Before you rally to the game's defence, know at least that Nutt is a die-hard RPG fanatic, not some blow-in hater of the genre. So his full piece below is definitely worth a read.

Questioning the 'vision' behind Final Fantasy XIII-2 [Gamasutra]

Greetings, Kotaku friends. Welcome, one and all, to our evening open thread. It's Tuesday, the last day of January. We're already "into" 2012. How did that happen? I guess time went forward, and took us with it.

Before you chat, here are some fun things from around the internet that you may enjoy:

• I trust you saw Kristen Bell lose it over a sloth? - Aw, this makes me really like her. She's a mess! Sloths are cute!
• The sometimes great, sometimes dumb, always beloved-by-me Chuck has gone off the air - NPR's Linda Holmes gives the show a fitting farewell.
• Michelle Obama's Twitter feed is funny - At least, it's funny if you read through it and imagine that she's writing it, and she just really likes to talk about herself in the third person.
• Adam Sandler is going to be in Candyland movie - No, seriously.
• "Think about your dad!" - Just found myself rewatching this and thought I'd re-share it.
• "The Most Amazing Nicolas Cage Interview You Will Ever Read" - "I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made Ringu, and I would like to take The Wicker Man to Japan, except this time he's a ghost."
• Hopefully you're still reading "Revolting Snack Foods of America" - This time, they have some lobster-cheese flavored Lay's. Mmmm... puke!
• You know you want some dress sweat-pants right now. - You know you do! I do, anyway.

• And that's what I got! Have good chatting, catch you tomorrow.

  
  

Not the toys. And not the Michael Bay horror films. I mean the 1986 animated feature.

At the time, Transformers: The Movie was notable for two things. One was the fact it killed everybody, traumatising an entire generation of young, impressionable movie-goers. The second, and more lasting, was the movie's casting.

It was a mess. A glorious, haphazard mess. There were teen heartthrobs, oscar-winning actors, sci-fi staples, comedians, TV veterans, voice-over people, the works. Yet somehow the "throw as many random names as we can afford" approach actually worked, and better still, it made the flick memorable. Example? I once won a pub trivia night by successfully answering the question "What was Orson Welles' last ever movie".

With Mass Effect 3's cast assembled earlier today, it struck us how much BioWare's series had begun to take after Transformers' batshit crazy approach. That with each game came an increase in the size of not just the cast itself, but how bonkers it was.

Where Transformers went the "elder statesman" route with Orson Welles, Mass Effect has Martin Sheen. Where Transformers hired a veteran voice man in Robert Stack, Mass Effect has veteran voice man Keith David. Transformers had sci-fi staple Leonard Nimoy, Mass Effect went and hired half the cast of Battlestar Galactica. Transformers had Monty Python comedian Eric Idle unexpectedly voice a role, Mass Effect went deep into left field and hired funny man Seth Green to play not a teenage loser, but a starship pilot.

And where Transformers shot for the swoon vote with Judd Nelson, fresh off Breakfast Club, Mass Effect now has...Jessica Chobot.

Now, I'm not saying Mass Effect is copying Transformers. It's just, we noticed this morning that the Chobot hire had tipped the movie over the edge. For over 25 years, Transformers has stood at the pinnacle of crazy nerd sci-fi casting. Nothing came close to assembling such a talented, yet bizarre cast of talent.

But if Mass Effect 3's new hirings don't completely ruin the mix, it may have a little competition from a cast that includes a former President of the United States, a star of They Live and a girl who licked a PSP that one time.

Master LEGO builder Luke Hutchinson has constructed this wonderful homage toSkyrim out of little plastic bricks, turning what in the game would be a leisurely side-quest slaughtering a few dozen Stormcloaks into a real-world work of art.

Be sure to check out the finer details...there's even loot!

Regaining the Pale: Skyrim in Lego [Brothers Brick]

A pretty shitty week for THQ has gotten worse, with the beleaguered publisher threatened with expulsion from the Nasdaq stock exchange because its shares are worth so little. [MCV]