This week, Ubisoft Shanghai's I Am Alive finally comes to the PlayStation 3, which is cool. I liked that game, as did Tina in her review—it's its own thing, and worthy of your time.

The scads of Mortal Kombat DLC characters are all on sale, so if you're still playing that game (like I am), you can now flesh out your ranks for cheaper than ever. Also, if you'd like to give Warp a test run, you can. Nothing much new for the Vita.

So okay, yeah, not the most exciting week ever on the PlayStation store, but not every week can be a home run.

Read the full list below:

PS Vita Add-Ons

MotorStorm RC (x4) (free – $2.99)
Blazblue: Cse – System Voice Arrange Kokonoe Type-A, Type-B (Vita Dlc) (Cross Entitled With PS3) ($5.99)
Ridge Racer Music Pack 16 & 17 "Variety #1 – #2" (free)
Army Corps Of Hell – Bunny Ears Equipment Set (free)

PSN Games

Wheels Of Destruction ($9.99)
The Price Is Right Decades ($9.99)
I Am Alive ($14.99)

Game Demos

Warp Demo
Time Machine: Rogue Pilot Demo
I Am Alive Demo

Add-ons & Expansions

EyePet & Friends (x10) ($0.69 – $2.99)
LittleBigPlanet 2 (x5) ($1.99 – $5.99)
MotorStorm RC (x4) (free – $2.99)
Blazblue: Cse – System Voice Arrange Kokonoe Type-A, Type-B (PS3 Dlc) (Cross Entitled With Vita ($5.99)
Asura's Wrath – Additional Episode 15.5 ($1.99)
Street Fighter X Tekken (x46) (free- $12.49)
SSX: Eddie And More (free)
Soulcalibur V (x5) (free – $2.99)
Tales Of Graces F (x11) ($0.99 – $3.99)
Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 DLC (x4) (free – $1.99)
Ninja Gaiden 3 (x7) ($1.99 – $9.99)
Rocksmith – Bring Me To Life By Evanescence ($2.99)
Rocksmith – Pumped Up Kicks By Foster The People ($2.99)
Rocksmith – This Love by Maroon 5 ($2.99)

Updates

Mortal Kombat – Warrior Kenshi (Spring Fever Sale) (now $3.49, original price $4.99)
Mortal Kombat – Dlc Warrior Bundle (Spring Fever Sale) (now $10.49, original price $14.99)
Mortal Kombat – Freddy Kreuger (Spring Fever Sale) (now $3.49, original price $4.99)
Mortal Kombat – Klassic Skins Pack 1 (Spring Fever Sale) (now $3.49, original price $4.99)
Mortal Kombat – Warrior Skarlet (Spring Fever Sale) (now $3.49, original price $4.99)
Mortal Kombat Warrior Rain (Spring Fever Sale) (now $3.49, original price $4.99)
Prototype (Price Change) (now $19.99, original price $29.99)
Mortal Kombat vs. DC (Spring Fever Sale) (now $13.99, original price $19.99)
Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (Spring Fever Sale) (now $6.99 , original price $9.99)
MotorStorm RC – BONUS Supermini Duckie (PS3/PS Vita Cross Entitled add-on) (now free, original price $0.49)

Rock Band 3 tracks

• "Everybody's Fool" – Evanescence ($1.99)
• "Lithium" – Evanescence ($1.99)
• "What You Want" – Evanescence ($1.99)
• EVANESCENCE PACK 02 ($5.49) – Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game album: EVANESCENCE PACK 02. This pack includes "Everybody's Fool", "Lithium", and "What You Want". By Evanescence.

File size: 24-27 MB (singles), 74 MB (track pack)

Rock Band Network v2.0

• "Do the Donkey Kong" – Buckner & Garcia ($1.99)
• "Indiscriminate Murder is Counter Productive" – Machinae Supremacy ($1.99)
• "Over the Top" – White Wizzard ($1.99)
• "Starlight Speedway" – Rocket Ship Resort ($0.99)
• "Tear It Up" – Jerry Naylor ($1.99)

Game Videos

Bioshock Infinite – Heavy Hitters: Motorized Patriot Trailer
Journey Story Trailer
Journey Launch Trailer
The Tester Season 3 Episode 9

Themes

Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 Custom Theme (free)
Abstract Ocean Flight Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Abstract Firework Symphony Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Ups and Downs by Jody Barton Theme ($1.49)
Elements by On Repeat Theme ($1.99)

Avatars

Escape Plan Avatars (x6) ($0.49 each)
Unit 13 Avatars (x5) ($0.49 each)
Devil May Cry Avatars (x30) ($0.49 each)
Z.H.P. Avatars (x3) ($0.49)

PS Home

PlayStation Home Companions Pack
PlayStation Home Female Hairstyles Pack
PlayStation Home Furniture Pack 2
PlayStation Home Neon Pack
PlayStation Home Combat Armored Suit Pack

Apps

Amazon.com (free)

PlayStation Store for PSP

PSP Minis

Canabalt (Minis) ($2.99)
Farm Frenzy 2 – Minis ($4.99)

Game Videos (Free)
The Tester Season 3 Episode 9

PSP Themes
Lake Of Sorrows by Jasper Goodall PSP Theme ($1.49)
Collide o'Scope by Luke Insect PSP Theme ($1.49)

PlayStation Plus

A cruise can be a great way for a family to unplug from daily demands and distractions, and to bask in the salt air and sunshine. Or, if it's a Disney cruise on their two newest ships, it can be a chance to play a high def, room-sized, 32-player video game while floating on the Atlantic.

According to CNN, the Disney Dream and its sister ship the Disney Fantasy, which launches this week, use touch screen and light sensor technologies to create a space called the Magic Play Floor. As CNN describes:

The Magic Play Floor, which is available on both the Dream and the Fantasy, is made up of 32 high-definition displays that push 14 million pixels, which isn't something that's going to be replicated on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

This massive floor puts arcade games like Dance Dance Revolution to shame and allows up to 32 kids (16 adults) to gather around the edges and interact with the video games that unfold on the screens by using their feet or hands.

Around the border of these displays are light pad controllers. There are 48 sensors in each controller that detect the location, the motion and the proximity of each player.

Naturally, the games designed to take advantage of the Magic Play Floor and the smaller Magic Play Tables all star Disney characters and take advantage of Disney properties like Tron and Lilo & Stitch. The combination of massive, detailed touch screens and Kinect-like sensor technology, though, could make for some fascinating gameplay experiences.

The ships also feature scavenger-hunt style games similar to Disney World's Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom experience, as well as detailed golf simulators for both adults and children.

A cruise ship may seem an unexpected place to find complex new iterations on video games and arcades, but to Disney, that's just keeping up with the times. Bob Zalk, a senior show producer for Walt Disney Imagineering, explained to CNN, that "just as there's been an influx of passengers who game, there are more Imagineers that have grown up playing games. That's influencing the types of experiences that are being designed for vacationers."

We gamers, it seems, are everywhere. Even at sea.

Disney debuts its new video game technology at sea [CNN]

We should have known the conclusion would be trouble. Ending a game like Mass Effect 3 poses a special set of problems, because a central attraction of Western RPGs is that their systems respond to player choice. Mass Effect and its like are the classic case of games that generate stories through collaboration between designer and player. Drawing things to a close, however, requires the hand of the developer to show, often in ways that seem unattractive.

[Editor's Note: Spoilers follow after the break.]

This famously happened in the case of Fallout 3, which had an ending so widely disliked that the developers ultimately retconned it with DLC. As I write this, there are petitions to see the same happen with Mass Effect 3. This effort exists because the game's ending does not respect the player's investment in the universe or creative force in the game.

The Mass Effect series has always presented itself to players as a vehicle for them to make important, if difficult, decisions. From the first game, the player's choices as Commander Shepard have dictated who lives and dies, with results that ultimately define the fate of entire species in the trilogy's finale.

The end of Mass Effect 3 disregards the player's choices on both galactic and personal scales. In contrast to the exquisite, if occasionally opaque, ways the player's decisions dictated the outcome of Shepard's suicide mission in Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3's finale is essentially a railroad. Provided a player has gathered enough military force, all three possibilities for dealing with the series-long villains, the Reapers, are available. The player can opt to control them, destroy them, or join with them in an organic-AI synthesis of some kind. The choice only determines the primary color and some other minor details of an ensuing cutscene. This denies the player any meaningful feedback about this decision, and the game's refusal to elaborate in any serious way on what happens to the galaxy undercuts the importance of choices made in this and previous ME games.

However, these scenes also destroy the galaxy that the games spent so much time developing. No matter what the player chooses, the mass relays detonate spectacularly, releasing massive shockwaves. In the world of the game these relays are the lynchpin of galactic travel and commerce, and their removal separates its the various worlds by voyages that take years, rather than moments. Demolishing the paths of commercial and cultural exchange that defined the galaxy, however, is a minor problem compared to what the game itself states will be the result of the exploding relays.

Although it has recently been demonstrated that mass relays can be destroyed, a ruptured relay liberates enough energy to ruin any terrestrial world in the relay's solar system.

—Mass Effect 3 Secondary Codex, "The Reaper War - Desperate Measures"

Did you choose to cure the genophage, or do what the Dalatrass asked? It doesn't matter. Tuchanka and Sur'Kesh were destroyed.

Did you save the Geth, or the Quarians? Who cares? The fleet is wrecked and Rannoch has been obliterated.

Did you take back Earth, as the game's ad campaign promised you would? Not in any meaningful way: the world you fought to save is gone.

Was your Shepard a paragon? Too bad, buddy; now she's the galaxy's worst war criminal.

Destroying the relays nullifies not only the major decisions Shepard has made, but even the mission she undertook. The Reapers did not harvest all life, Shepard murdered it instead, eradicating not only all the principal civilized worlds of her time but also any primitive cultures unlucky enough to live near a mass relay.

Even the more personal choices were ignored, at least for my renegade Shepard. As the conduit exploded around her, she flashed back to images of her pilot, Joker, her mentor, Anderson, and... Liara? Well, Shepard had a fling with her once, but that was years in the past. They're just friends now. My Shepard had finally fallen for Garrus, even made love to him not long before the final battle. Yet she saw no vision of her lover in her final moments, nor even of her best friend outside the crew (Wrex, obviously). Instead, my Shepard's thoughts were apparently with the pilot she thought was an irresponsible cut-up.

At least Joker manages to save a few lives. Although almost all of Shepard's crew was with her on Earth for the final push against the Reapers, they somehow end up on Shepard's vessel, the Normandy, racing at lightspeed to escape the shockwave. The ship crash-lands on some hitherto unknown garden world, dooming Garrus and Tali to a horrific death by starvation. As organisms built on D-amino acids, they find L-amino life indigestible. Tali will likely have the worst of it, as when she inevitably tries to eat something it will certainly cause a painful allergic reaction on top of being non-nourishing.

This absurd sequence, which ignores not only the details of the game's universe but even obvious aspects of the immediate plot, points to the ending's failure to adequately mesh even with its own fiction. This also shows through in the explanation given for the Reapers themselves, which is that each Reaper is used to store an organic civilization so that all organic life will not be wiped out by synthetic lifeforms. In one sense, this is troubling because it implies that killing a Reaper is an act of genocide. The larger problem for the ending, though, is that it leans on the series' least interesting theme, and even then disregards everything that the games have conveyed on the subject.

After all, the genuine synthetic intelligences present throughout the series have generally not been inimical to organic life. The robotic Geth, although initially presented as aggressive foes, are later shown to have been the victims of pre-emptive attacks by the Quarians. Even the ones that joined the Reapers in the first game did so out of a desire for self-advancement, not out of intrinsic malice towards organics. The other true AI the series presents is EDI, whose voluntary aid repeatedly proves crucial in helping Shepard's missions succeed, and who might even be in love with Joker. Though the game undercuts itself by almost always placing synthetic lifeforms on the business end of Shepard's gun, in dialogue and plot the synthetics are neutral, or even allies.

Yet even though the story of the Mass Effect games refutes the necessity of war between AI and organics at every turn, the finale presents their conflict as inevitable. The ending does not even give Shepard the option to use the truth about the Geth to argue against the Catalyst that controls the Reapers.

In this and other ways, the ending doesn't reward the player for paying attention to the world the games have presented. Indeed, the more the player understands about the Mass Effect universe, the worse the ending seems. For a game series that had a rich backstory conveyed through dialogue, detailed factsheets, and miles of text, disregarding the lore is a significant act of disrespect towards the invested player. It argues that their interest in the world does not matter, not even to the world's originators.

Shrinking the possible outcomes of Shepard's final confrontation down to a few options allows the developers to exert the maximum amount of control over those moments, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, by ignoring the series' lore and discarding the effects of the player's choices, Mass Effect 3's ending disrespects the player's investment and engagement in the game's world. Handled that way, the conclusion argues that the player's time and emotional attachment have been wasted.

This transforms the developer-player relationship from creative collaboration to adversarial dictation. That transformation is exacerbated by decisions - the day-one "From Ashes" DLC released alongside a game-ruining face-import bug, Ashley's new look, and Jessica Chobot's cameo - that seem openly contemptuous of the series' core fans. Destroying the universe on their way out the door is the developers' ultimate attempt at seizing control of the creation, an exclamation that "This is mine, and you can't have it!"

This explains some fan reactions to the ending. A petition to alter the ending through a patch or DLC may seem unrelated to a forum post reinterpreting the existing conclusion as a hallucination. Both responses, however, represent players' attempts to seize control of the narrative back from the developers, by choosing a new series of events, or by choosing a new lens through which the existing events will be viewed.

Upset as these players are, a poor ending does not undo a wonderful game. Up until its last 15 minutes, Mass Effect 3 is excellent, a remarkable and moving culmination to an extended saga. The game's conclusion does not undo the excellent cooperative storymaking that went on in the previous 60-odd hours, or the player's investment in the universe. It does, however, disrespect them.

The name of Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson's next game will be 0x10c, he said today on his Twitter account.

No, it's not Mars Effect, as he had claimed on April Fools Day. The team is going with 0x10c, a name as bizarre as it is unpronounceable. It's also an error code.

"What happens if you try to read a 64 bit representation of 1 in a 16 bit system, but you get the endianness wrong?" Persson wrote on Twitter today.

Persson and his company, Mojang, have not yet shared much about the upcoming space game, so I'll assume you play as an IT programmer whose job is just to eliminate 0x10c errors all day. In space.

@Notch [Twitter]

You won't need plastic instruments to jam along to Harmonix's latest Rock Band game. Revealed on G4 today, Rock Band Blitz turns players into a one-man band, making them play all the instruments with a gamepad in a song in an arcade-style experience that harkens back to the dev studio's Frequency and Amplitude games.

You'll be able to use all the playable tracks in the Rock Band back catalog, jumping from guitar part to drums to bass whenever you want. And if you buy games through Blitz, those purchases will work with Rock Band 3 as well. No word on pricing yet but Rock Band Blitz will be available for download on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

The dancing in Star Wars: Kinect is admittedly quite silly to say the least. But you don't need to chalk this latest Star Wars-branded product up to a scar on your childhood memories.

Instead, let's celebrate the sheer ridiculousness that is the Star Wars parody dance moves and songs. But apparently a lot of die-hard Star Wars fans don't appreciate seeing the likes of stormtroopers and Boba Fett dancing like they're trying to make it on Dancing With The Stars. We're talking about watching bounty hunters do the "wookie hug" here, after all.

That said, how hilarious do these gifs look? And imagine dropping one of these on your friend's lap the next time they go on about the treachery that has been done to a favorite franchise. The look of horror on their face after showing them Boba Fett shimmying about is totally worth whatever backlash you get for it.

This truly has to be the next Rickroll trolling tactic.

This week's dose of anti-video game vitriol comes straight outta Great Britain, where a group called the Association of Teachers and Lecturers says electronic entertainment is making kids violent.

As Telegraph reports:

Alison Sherratt, former president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, says growing access to "horrific" games is responsible for an increase in the amount of aggressive behaviour in school playgrounds.

In a speech to the union's annual conference on Wednesday, she will say that teachers have witnessed the youngest pupils "acting out quite graphic scenes", including a rise in "hitting, hurting and thumping".

Many parents are failing to adhere to age-restrictions on the most violent games, she adds, raising concerns that children are growing up desensitised to aggression and bloodshed.

...

"I would suggest that if children are taking part in this fairly solitary existence this will impact on their speaking and listening skills which, in turn, will impact on their ability to concentrate and learn in school," she says.

"Sadly, there is a noticeable correlation between the children who admit to playing games and those who come to school really tired."

Yes, it's thump-filled video games that are leading to all of these problems. Definitely not the fact that they're children and this is what children do.

Violent video games are fuelling rise in aggressive behaviour [Telegraph]

Photo credit: (C) Zsolt Nyulászi/ Stockfresh.

Ubisoft is releasing a number of Ghost Recon games this year. There's console title Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, free-to-play PC shooter Ghost Recon Online, and now Ghost Recon Commander, a Facebook-based social experience designed to bridge the other games and tie them together.

Loot Drop co-founder Brenda Brathwaite revealed the game's Facebook page via Twitter today adding, "More info to follow. Very grateful to work in my favorite franchise!"

Ghost Recon Commander, billing itself as "a fast-paced strategic combat experience," ties in to this year's Future Soldier, which is due on consoles this May and on PC in June.

As with the Assassin's Creed franchise before it, Ubisoft plans for the two games to work together as "companion games," with advances in one feeding into the other. Talking with Pocket Gamer, Chris Early, VP of digital publishing at Ubisoft, gave a high-level overview of how the two titles will link:

In the case of Ghost Recon, which has been one of our brands for many years, we have Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, a full-on, triple-A console game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, where you're going to sit at home on the big screen with your console, and play.

At the same time, we have Ghost Recon: Commander, which is a game on Facebook and mobile, where you'll be able to play a different game, but still a game in the Ghost Recon universe, so it's related lore.

What's more important, I think, from a gamer's perspective is you'll have advantages in one game that you'll unlock by playing the other game.

It's not just a one-time item unlock. The more you play each of those games, the more benefit you create in terms of the other gameplay experience. So, by playing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, you'll be able to unlock characters you can use in the Facebook game, plus currency, experience points, items etc that you can use in the social and mobile game.

And - conversely - by playing the social and mobile game, if you're playing at work at lunch, or in a break, you're continuing the character progression. You'll unlock items and experience points bonus and currency in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

Early didn't provide any specific details about Ghost Recon: Commander during his interview, but he did stress that the social element of this particular social game is important, explaining that, as many Facebook games do, it would involve asynchronous play with friends. He added:

You'll want a lot of friends connected, and you'll want to play with your friends, because you'll actually need your friends to play the game. We've got some twists that will make it a new style of social involvement on Facebook.

Whether or not Ghost Recon: Commander becomes a can't-miss Facebook (and, down the line, iOS) release remains up in the air for now, as does its ultimate launch date. For now, it's "coming soon" but it seems likely that, at the very latest, it would be released May 22, to coincide with Future Soldier's launch.

Chris Early on mobile's place within Ubisoft's strategy for linking triple-A, free-to-play and companion gaming [PocketGamer.biz]

Ghost Recon Commander [Facebook]

Does the Nintendo Wii U touch panel display have your mind reeling with possibilities? Commenter Gusi A. Rincon imagines an inventive way to keep your fighting game opponents reeling as well in today's short but sweet Speak Up on Kotaku.

This is one of the best uses for the Wii U touch screen I can come up with...poorly done Photoshop by me :D

This is my daughter. Her nickname is Cheeks. I really want her to play video games. Like, I really, really do. One of her favorite things to grab when she wanders around the apartment is an Xbox 360 controller. She holds it the right way most of the time, presses the buttons and looks up at me with a big smile on her face.

This fills me with hope.

I dream of her experiencing the beauty of Flower, the bluesy feeling of Bastion and the atmosphere of BioShock. For all my artsy parental aspirations, though, I realize that she's probably going to come in through some more down-to-earth fare.

But, like any father, I wonder what she's going to find when I start letting her engage with the medium I love and work with. More specifically, there's two big problems I see her having when she powers up her first handheld or console game.

She's Not Going to Find Anyone That Looks Like Her

Leaving aside the specific mix of her parentage—Black and Asian, if you must know—this little bundle of cute is going to grow up into a brown woman. Have you seen where brown women wind up in video game casting? Sassy sidekicks are the best of it, folks. And maybe she won't be offended by the Letitias she meets, but they're not going to engender any great love in her either. They're not going to resemble her aunts or her cousins or her school friends.

It's not enough to just make a protagonist—or worse, a sidekick—black. Why? Because of the Hunger. The Hunger is the angry growling in the pit of a black nerd's soul that asks constantly, "where are we in the big picture?" It manifests differently for everybody. Nevertheless, I don't want to pass on The Hunger to my daughter. I want the video games of the future to make her feel welcome.

Now, you might say, "Evan, I play video games every day that don't have people that look like me. So do you for that matter!" That's true. But I want different for her. I want better for her. And my scenario's a bit different then what I'm envisioning for Cheeks. As a medium, video games already has its hooks in me. It has for years.

Cheeks is going to need to be convinced. Won over, even. Whatever Angry Birds equivalent she winds up playing won't be what lights a lifelong fire in her heart. Games like Rovio's hit are dalliances. You leave, you come back. They're disposable. No, she's going to need characters and plot twists and next-gen interactivity to make her a lifelong fan. Call it a father's naïve wish for his little girl but I'd hate to have the passion I have for video games not get passed on to her.

The Whole Girl Gamer Thing

I used to work at Teen People Magazine ten years ago. Back then, the fact that girls played video games still got treated like a mind-blowing revelation. Nowadays, the air of novelty is gone but it's been replaced by a distrust or dismissal. And the flip side of this is even worse, when women who play games are exoticized or fetishized.

I don't want her to have to hide. Ever. From anything. Again, that's probably naïve. But I want her to find a home, a catalyst and a passion inside of video games just the same way I have. Hell, better than I have. Our generation will be the first to raise kids who won't be hearing about video games as a cursed or second-class medium. That stigma's gone, but other ones remain.

If she were of age to play video games now, I'd be extremely wary of the reflections—or more accurately, the lack thereof—she'd find staring back at her. But she won't be there for a little while yet. She has time to grow up and learn about the world. I hope that video games do the same.