Kotaku has obtained this photo of an advertisement for Guild Wars 2, seen at a Fry's retailer in Texas.

As you can see, the ad says ArenaNet's massively multi-player online game, which is currently in beta, will be out on June 28.

So is it legit? On one hand, retailers tend to use placeholder release dates that are often based on estimates more than reality. (GameStop, for example, says the game will be out on June 26.)

On the other hand, this poster is a little more concrete than your average game retailer's database. It's a printed, physical object.

I've reached out to Guild Wars publisher NCsoft for comment and will update should they choose to respond.

Update: Here's a statement from NCsoft: "We have not released an official launch date within 2012 as feedback from our closed and open marketing betas will help us determine an exact release date. We will release Guild Wars 2 when it is ready."

We were all excited last night. After a 12-year wait, Diablo III, Blizzard's much-anticipated action-fantasy loot-fest, had finally arrived. It was sitting there installed on our hard drives, waiting for midnight to come, for Blizzard to unlock the game so we could play it.

The midnight hour arrived, and Blizzard's servers were overwhelmed. Too many people were trying to play at once, and most of us wound up locked out.

Diablo III requires a constant internet connection to play. Not just to start a game or activate a new copy, but to play. Always. An hour and a half after I had started trying to log in from the title screen, I gave up. I couldn't play Diablo III, even the single-player portions of the game, because Blizzard's servers weren't working.

This is a problem.

It wasn't the end of the world. Not even close. I'm not going to climb up here and holler about what a travesty this is, or how angry I am, or anything like that. It's not, and I'm not. The servers are mostly stable as of this morning. When I woke up, I made a groovy monk character and had a lot of fun blasting a ton of shambling corpses into bloody bits. All the same, last night's logjam neatly demonstrates the single greatest problem with any single-player game that requires an internet connection to play.

There will likely always be server problems with the launch of any popular, ambitious online game. Something like this happened recently with Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example—players had to wait a good chunk of time to get onto the server of their choice and start playing.

The thing is, The Old Republic is expressly intended as a massively multiplayer online game. That's the point—the game exists only as a multiplayer experience. But I don't really play Diablo games with other people. I like to click and plunder, to level up my guy and get lots of great loot. I can tell I'm going to have a complicated critical relationship with Diablo III, but I value the refreshing simplicity of its feedback loop.

But the game I play doesn't need to be online. With Diablo III, Blizzard has melded the classic Diablo formula into something of an MMO/Single-player hybrid. That's an experiment that I'm very interested to watch unfold, even while I'm not sure that I personally want to be a participant.

I remember last year when another hotly anticipated PC game came out, Valve's Portal 2. The build-up felt very similar to last night—we'd all pre-loaded the game on Valve's distribution client Steam, and anxiously awaited the midnight unlock. And when midnight came, there were some issues—the game took a while to decrypt, and twitter-grumpiness ensued.

Twitter-complaining about Portal 2 was met with plenty of sarcasm and good-natured derision. "Oh, you have to wait an extra ten minutes to play your video game? Poor you! Let's keep things in perspective! These things happen."

Those chiders had a point. In under 30 minutes, we who had been complaining were all happily messing around in Portal 2.

I saw some of those same chiders online last night, but their tut-tutting felt more misguided. This was a different scenario, and so people were reacting differently. Portal 2 simply required an internet connection to unlock the pre-loaded game, but due to Blizzard's always-on internet requirement, there was (and will forever be) no way for us to play Diablo III without their servers up and functional.

Right then, during the launch hour, Blizzard's servers couldn't handle the truth. I tried for an hour and a half to get in and play the game to no avail. "Error 37" after "Error 37" after "The operation has timed out" after "Error 37."

If it had been a simple matter of activating my game, I would have been fine—time and again I logged in for long enough to shake hands with the server before getting kicked because, presumably, the server couldn't handle the increased load that came from letting me actually play the game.

I'm sure there are lots of reasons that Blizzard has decided to require a constant internet connection, and fighting piracy is only one of them. Certainly the in-game trading economy, which will be hugely engaging for a subset of players and hugely profitable for Blizzard and their parent company Activision, also factors. Doubtless there's also a desire to cajole single-player guys like me to dip into multiplayer, a game-mode that will engage and retain players for much longer than single-player.

But I don't want to get sidetracked making guesses about the ins and outs of Blizzard's online strategy. The important thing to note is that last night, a game was rendered unplayable for a large amount of time entirely because of server failure on Blizzard's part. Maybe it'll never happen again. But maybe it will.

We always knew that by demanding a constant internet connection, Blizzard was taking away a portion of the consumer's ownership of their game. Last night, as the starting gun fired, we got a reminder of what that really means. It means that we play at their pleasure, and that we no longer have the power to decide when our game starts and when it doesn't.

I'm in California this week for the purpose of checking out a bunch of video games that will be shown at E3 next month. I'm a pre-E3 Judge*, you see, bouncing from one showcase with a game publisher to another, signing lots of paperwork in which I swear not to tell people about these games for a few weeks.

Except: I can tell you about Square-Enix's 3DS games, because, according to Square logic, these games are coming out in the summer and therefore it's ok to not wait until E3. You might infer that nothing else I saw at Square-Enix's showcase will be out this summer, but maybe you shouldn't!

The three 3DS games they had were English-language versions of Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy as well as the it-was-always-in-English-because-Americans-made-it Heroes of Ruin. I played them all, rapidly. I tried each for about 10 minutes, sort of like I was speed-dating with the games (spoiler: I went back to my hotel room alone).

Game journalists are often mocked, partially because of their wardrobe and partially because some of them—me!—frequently find themselves in situations such as last night's when they suddenly have to wrap their heads around three exotic games and then must humiliate themselves to the reading public by explaining that, uh, yeah I didn't play enough Final Fantasy to recognize many of the songs in the Final Fantasy music game I was playing last night and, well... let's see you get a new Kingdom Hearts role-playing game shoved in your hands and you try to make sense of it in a few minutes while trying to ask the assistant product manager nearby to refresh your memory about Kingdom Hearts lore.

What can I muster from something like this that you aren't able to get from some official website, or from, say the in-depth previews that one of our guys in Tokyo was able to write based on playing his very own copies of the games? (Richard on Kingdom Hearts; Richard on Theatrhythm).

Let's see...

***

The best thing I can say about Kingdom Hearts is that I came back to it at the end of the night after having started with it. Honestly, that's because it confused me the first time. Dream Drop Distance is the newest game in the series, a snappily (for Square-Enix standards) four-month translation-turnaround from its March 2012 release in Japan and the newest game in terms of the 10-year-old series' storyline. About all I retain from my toe-dips into this series is that these are the games where Disney characters hang out with Final Fantasy or Final Fantasy-like character, lots of characters in black cloaks say mysterious things and the ever-flashy real-time combat rewards rapid button-pressers with spectacular special effects. This new game's got all of that.

You play alternately as series regulars Sora and Riku both of whom have been been sent by the series' wise-old-man Yensid into a bunch of dreamscapes in order to take their Mark of Mastery Exam, a qualifying test that you're supposed to have aced to earn the right to wield the signature weapon of the Kingdom Hearts games, the Keyblade.

The game is all sensory overload. Lots of talking, lots of dropped items and text alerts. We've got action on the top screen rendered in deep 3D that occasionally appears to pop out of the screen. On the bottom screen we've got a map and some tappable buttons, including a trio that are associated with a batch of so-called Dream Eaters whose menacing classification belies the fact that they look as threatening as balloon animals. As you smash through enemies the Dream Eaters fight alongside you and can be summoned to your side to enhance your attacks. You need to smash enough enemies to fill their pink power meters and then summon one or both for increasingly devastating combo moves. As Sora or Riku you've got the standard Kingdom Hearts rapid-fire battle controls, which let you smash buttons to chain attacks that are listed as a bunch of branching labels, all changing on the fly depending on which move is available next. So, yeah, these games are still sugar rushes.

You were always spry in Kingdom Hearts games, but you're even more spry in this one thanks to a new Y-button-activated feature that lets you bounce of walls and twirl around lamp postss. It's Kingdom Hearts parkour, I guess, though of course they don't call it that. As a result, the best instructional text prompt of 2012 so far is in this game: "Own your enemies with flowmotion." OK. I will!

Any decent games reporter will ask a Square assistant product manager to explain a weird title like Dream Drop Distance. Any decent Square assistant product manager won't waste time with the obvious "3D" aspect of the name and will instead explain that the "Dream" is for the idea that Sora and Riku are on an adventure in dream worlds, the "Drop" refers to the game's distinct flow (you play a chunk as Sora while an on-screen Drop meter slowly drains; then you cash in Sora's items and experience to level up Riku and play as him until his Drop meter drains and you're warped back to his part of the adventure), and... oh, yeah, "Distance" kind of refers to that, too.

Even in two 10-minute sessions, the most I can get out of KH:DDD aside from all of those basics is confirmation that, yeah, if you want to go through large levels in, say, some sort of opera house while chasing Disney bad-guy Pete, you'll be able to do it. You'll be able to do it, while mashing many buttons to fight many rainbow-monster bad guys, with rainbow-animal allies at your side. And, if you want to play a game in which you might open a chest and find Minnie Mouse inside it and in which, while you're talking to her you might see some dark-robed guy in the background messing with some big piece of gears or clockwork or something and this is all part of a big plot of some sort... here's your game.

The 3D was good and it played nice and flashy. I think that's what Kingdom Hearts fans want? Aside from all that great mash-up fan service?

***

Occasionally my less forgiving readers verbally butcher me for not having played Final Fantasy games that didn't end in IV, X, XII and XIII. (Credit for Tactics, anyone?). To those people I say, yeah, a 3DS music game that lets you tap and swipe a stylus to keep the great musical themes from the numbered Final Fantasy games going isn't the best game for me.

This was essentially the part of my speed-dating when I might as well have sat down with a lady speaking Russian.

The gameplay is sort of like that in the great DS rhythm games Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan in that you're tapping and tracing paths and icons on the machine's lower screen (a 3DS in this case) to keep a scene going. Sometimes you're doing this to keep a cinematic scene playing (Hey, look at all those moments from Final Fantasy VII! Somehow, I know who that girl is and what happens to her!). Sometimes you're tracing and swiping through an overworld theme as a cute big-headed version of an old or modern Final Fantasy character side-scrolls through some scenery. And at other times—the best times, I dare say—you're tapping and swiping to various Final Fantasy battle themes, keeping a four-character party alive and well as they battle computer-controlled monsters.

This battle stuff is way more interesting than the other two modes. Your party lines up vertically on the right of the 3DS' top screen. The prompts for all your tapping and swiping flow in from the left, usually a bunch of them toward one character, then a bunch toward another. As in all the modes and with just about all rhythm games, you're expected to tap and swipe with good timing. The better the timing, the more effectively the character associated with each wave of taps fights in the battle. A good of run of notes will make them charge up big moves, cast useful spells, etc. At the end of the battle/song, you gain experience points, can customize your party and—what do you know?—we've kind of got a musical role-playing game here. I dare say this visit with the Russian was worth it!

Any song in Theatrhythm that I tried at random in this game sounded all-new to me, though I'm assured that the soundtrack is pretty much all-old and made for true FF fans. So this is for you, maybe? That battle mode, however, might also make this for me.

***

Heroes of Ruin comes form n-Space, the Florida studio that, among other things, made Call of Duty DS games. Now they're making a DIablo-y kind of thing, a top-down action-role-playing game in which you kill monsters, collect loot and improve your character. You can party up with up to three other people on Wi-Fi, though at the Square event I settled for partying up with ex-Kotaku man Mike McWhertor over local wireless. I was a Gunslinger-class fighter, shooting from range, mostly. He was a Vindicator, who the n-Space developer coaching us along described as more of white knight, a tank/healer.

Mike and I did what you'd expect to do in a Diablo-y kind of game. We roamed around killing monsters and collecting loot. The n-Space developer said that people who play together will gain special friendship level-ups the more often they link up. He was also proud of how open Nintendo has let them be with the networking, enabling players to drop into games being played by strangers. Modern internet gaming, people!

I can do no more than classify Heroes of Ruin as solid so far. It seems like it could satisfy the genre checkboxes.

I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that Mike giggled some over the mage/crowd-control class being called the Alchitect. (The fourth class, the burly berzerker, is called the Savage). But at least he wasn't the wiseass who asked the n-Space guy if the development team had embraced the fact that the acronym of their game sounds like "whore." The infinitely-patient n-Space guy (real name: Charles Stuard; real title: senior designer at n-Space) can think on his feet. He told me it was focus-tested and, well, he guesses people like "whore"s. Suddenly, while writing these impressions, I'm having second thoughts about this speed-dating metaphor.

***

I've never had an easy time falling head over heels for a game during short demos like these. You have to take in so much all at once and flaws are easily hidden from a reporter's eyes. The best I can do is form a snap judgment that all three of these games are worth another look. I don't sense a break-out hit or all-time favorite here, but I do detect three at-least-solid-but-hopefully-better-than-that games that use the 3DS hardware well enough to look good and play pretty well. These look like solid entries for the second year of Nintendo's handheld.

If you like what you're reading keep paying attention to them. They're all coming out around July or so.

---

*Full disclosure: We deviate from standard policy at Kotaku for E3 Judges' Week (organized by the Game Critics Awards) and allow our travel and lodging to be paid for by game publishers. The rationale is that while we still don't believe it's healthy to have a single publisher like EA or Capcom or whoever pay for a reporter's travel to an event for their games, at pre-E3, the fact that a pool of participating publishers divides costs nullifies the potential for subconscious favoritism. In the case of 2012's pre-E3 week, my airfare and lodging was paid by the publisher assigned to me, Bethesda Softworks.

Given what some games could smell like (blood, dirt, hellspawn hordes), this is far better than you'd think. Over on Etsy, a haven for geeky goods, seller Bubble and Geek has created a lovely line of fan-favorite home goods. These scented candles draw inspiration from fan-favorites like Doctor Who, Star Wars, and, yes, video games.

Need to repel a zombie? That's what sunflowers are for! The cake is, of course, a lie; it's a chocolate-scented candle, not a cake.

I have to admit, I'm glad the Game of Thrones-inspired "Khaleesi" candle smells of the orange and cinnamon one might find in Qarth and not the, um, rich scent of a horse-riding horde galloping under a desert sun.

Bubble and Geek [Etsy, via Pwn Love]

I hadn't heard Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" until this parody was born, but the Diablo III remix makes me (ashamedly) like the tune.

New Star Soccer is a flash game that's been available on PC for years now. It's fun, and it's free. Well, it's also now out on Android, iPhone and iPad, and while it's no longer free, it's still great fun.

Paring back a lot of the more interactive features present in the desktop version, the iOS New Star Soccer keeps things simple: you create a football player, pick their team then watch the action unfold ala the Football Manager series.

Where NSS differs, though, is in its participation. You're not just adjusting sliders and watching things take place from afar; whenever your guy is involved in the action, you're put in direct control of them, carrying out various minigames that correspond to activities like shooting and passing.

Throw in off-field activities like gambling, looking after a girlfriend and buying a PSP and it's the almost the perfect marriage of quickplay phone game, football management sim and RPG.

New Star Soccer [Free, App Store]

New Star Soccer [$2.99, Android Marketplace]

A single button push takes a Portal 2 cube on an incredible journey through Ben Perry's astounding Rube Goldberg-inspired custom level.

Portal 2's brain-twisting puzzles prepared players perfectly for creating their own convoluted level creations. The recently-released level editor has been getting a strenuous workout by some incredibly brilliant minds.

Ben Perry took a couple of hours to put this all together, limited only by his imagination and the number of objects the editor allows players to work with.

And to think this is only the early days of the tool. It's almost scary to imagine what's still to come. I'm all tingly.

Portal 2 - Rube Goldberg Machine v1.0 [YouTube via Reddit]

Rube Goldberg Machine v1.0 [Steam Workshop]

I can't decide which adjective fits this video more: adorable or terrifying. This little girl can already break into all sorts of doors and lockers and safes. And she doesn't even have to play through a crappy mini-game first.

5 Year Old Girl Picks A Master Lock in Under A Minute [YouTube via Reddit]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 has debuted quite a few bits of DLC since its early-year release. They've added Sazh, Lightning, N7 armor, an octopus homage, and more, to say nothing of the various alternate costumes.

Now, though, Square Enix has announced that they will finally finish with Final Fantasy XIII-2 after one last burst of content. Today they've released two last episodes to round out the story. The first is "Snow's Story: Perpetual Battlefield," which adds Snow to the Coliseum. After completing his story, Snow will become an available party member.

"Lightning's Story: Requiem of the Goddess" promises to flesh out events from the main game, adding to the story and its ending. Lightning has special abilities that she'll apparently need, as according to Square Enix, "Requiem of the Goddess" will put "the arduous battle between Lightning and Caius not shown in the main game" front and center. The "Requiem of the Goddess" DLC takes place after the main events of Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Both DLC episodes, plus a white mage outfit for Serah, a black mage outfit for Noel, and a set of new outfits for Mog, will be available this week on XBox Live and PSN. The costumes all run 240 MSP (XBox) or $2.99 (PSN); "Snow's Story" is 320 MSP or $3.99 on PSN, and "Lightning's Story" goes for 400 MSP or $4.99.