With DariusBurst: Second Prologue, arcade shooter DariusBurst blasts up iOS with side-scrolling shooting and a hailstorm of pew-pews.

I love shooters—and I think the iOS is a viable platform for them. Yet, I'm not the world's biggest horizontal shooter fan. I prefer vertical shooters, which is a layout that suits the iPhone.

So while playing DariusBurst: Second Prologue, I made it about two minutes as a horizontal scroller. Even with the customized logo, my fingers kept getting in the way, and it was nearly impossible to play.

That's why I flipped my phone and played it as a vertical shooter. That kind of defeats the point of playing a horizontal shooter, I guess, but I've always like the big bosses in Darius, and this game looks great on iOS. It's got a great soundtrack, too.

Gotta do whatcha gotta do, I guess.

DariusBurst: Second Prologue [$10.99, iTunes]

Ok, fine. So the novel by Chuck Palahniuk came out several years before Super Smash Bros. was released in Japan. But the video game came out almost a full year before the movie did, so...Science!

Regardless, it's a comparison that I'm surprised wasn't drawn up in video form earlier. The little bits of parallel detail are really spot on.

Watch This: Smash Bros. Was The Real Fight Club Before Fight Club

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Play This: The Side-Scrolling Shooter I Flipped on Its Side

I've mentioned before that I have a soft spot for Larian's Divinity franchise, dating back to 2003. Their games have never been flawless but, with only one glaring exception, they have been fun. So in a way, I had my fingers crossed, hoping for the best, when I went to their demo room at E3 last week.

I was only expecting to see Divinity: Original Sin, but they also had a demo running of upcoming dragon-based real-time tactical game Dragon Commander, and so I had a look both.

Divinity: Dragon Commander is an interesting sort of hybrid. I wasn't a fan of the dragon flight features in any version of Divinity II, but from what I can tell from the hands-off demo, they've been refined a bit. And as all of the dragon flight segments are designed as aerial command play, the game doesn't run into issues of flight zones vs walking zones as Divinity II did.

So here is Dragon Commander: you have to take over the whole world, one territory at a time. The current owners of these territories are less than fully enamored of your empire-building plan, and so in addition to straightforward battles, you must also manage the political side of negotiations, rebellions, and alliances. In true Divinity fashion, you must make mutually exclusive choices about who to support, in what, and when, and those choices will create some allies and some enemies.

Tactically speaking, the battles look fun. We observed a multiplayer fight, with two developers taking each other on in the role of attacker and defender. The defender ran out of money early on: after covering his island with turrets, his dragon avatar was taken out, and he had to pay to respawn. Having to pay that much, so early in the round, hurt him badly. His mines were unable to generate him income quickly enough to make up for the deficit, and so he was unable to afford new turrets as the opposing dragon swept in and lit everyone and everything on fire.

Dragons sweeping in and commanding armies to light everything on fire? That's a pretty good time.

But where the strategic tools and plot look sound, the politicking part of the game worries me. Rather than keeping with the idea of keeping Dragon Commander cool and complex, the politics fall back on tired, tawdry tropes.

The cheerful, colorful, steampunk-inflected style of the dragon knight's home base makes a fun venue for back-room dealing. As the player moves through the world, taking over new territories, emissaries from the various races come on board and seek to make deals to benefit their own people—or the linings of their own purses—and to disadvantage others. The decisions made on-board result in a number of playable cards for the dragon knight. Say you agree allow a particular religion's clergy into a territory to open hospitals. You then get a card that works as a blanket heal, but you also run the risk of that religion, say, spiriting certain folks off into the night as sacrifices.

The secondary, political features should be great, but I had one huge problem with them. Impractical armor aside, the Divinity universe has never had a history of treating its female population particularly worse than its male population. Dragon Commander changes that.

Bluntly, the back-at-base level of the game is all about women as commodities. Underdressed women of the game's five races show up as princesses, who can be married or thrown over for political and tactical reasons. I get that marriage is perhaps humanity's oldest method of securing political alliances, but throwing boobtastic models around like so many collectible trading cards, in 2012, feels particularly distasteful. And there are other ways political marriage and spousal stat benefits could have been managed.

For many players, of course, having a curvy elf breathlessly greet you, with much heaving of the breast, on your return to the ship will of course be a highlight. But on the whole, having the poster and other marketing materials covered in a topless blonde felt like it cheapened the game.

Because really? The game's kind of a neat idea. It fills out a long-gone era of the enormous world Larian has been working with for the Divinity franchise for over a decade. Using magic and machinery together for tactical goals is something we don't necessarily see that often. And dragons with jetpacks, who control and destroy armies, are just the plain old kind of stupid, grin-inducing fun that I like to see from games.

At this stage, having seen videos and a hands-off, 15-minute demo, it's hard to tell where the balance will lie. The game may be mostly battles, with politics dropping in here and again, it may be mostly politics with battles to break the tedium, or, most likely, it will be an alternating mixture of both. Based on what I saw, I hope it's mostly battles. Being able to hover in air and take in a full 360-degree view of your troops, managing something almost like a dragon flight bullet time, and challenging yourself against both AI (in the single player campaign) and fellow players looks like a great, creative take on the strategy genre. And that's where the creative thought has gone: into the combat, instead of the conversations.

Larian is aiming to release Dragon Commander in the first few months of 2013.

"Tekken sucks."

Years ago, when abrasive game designer Tomonobu Itagaki was in charge of Tecmo's Team Ninja development studio, trash-talking other fighting game franchises was the norm. But the rail-thin rebel left Tecmo to work on the long-brewing Devil's Third for THQ, and now Yosuke Hayashi's the man in charge at Team Ninja.

When I played Dead or Alive 5 at E3 last week, Team Ninja devs let it be known that the upcoming title will see guest appearances by Akira and Sarah from Sega's Virtua Fighter. That turn of events might make one think that—with a new guy at the top— Team Ninja's got a more relaxed attitude about other fighting series. So I asked Hayashi and his colleague if this Virtua crossover meant there might be a new kinder, gentler openness at Team Ninja. After all, It's an era where Namco and Capcom can co-produce titles that pit big rival series Street Fighter and Tekken against each other.

But this bit of VF in DOA5 is different. Hayashi said that they're all fighting game platyers at Team Ninja and the Virtua Fighter games are experiences that they respect. "Without Virtua Fighter," Hayashi offered, "there would be no Dead or Alive." Team Ninja looks at Sega's groundbreaking foray into 3D polygon fighting action as an ancestor to the over-the-top thrills that DOA5 wants to deliver.

So, does the high regard that Team Ninja has for Virtua Fighter extend to other fighting franchises? Neither Hayashi nor his colleague would answer directly but they did comment that they wouldn't put just any character from other franchises into Dead or Alive. It's a respect thing.

Nintendo will have a much less annoying Friend Code system for the Wii U, four layers of protection in their online service and system-level Achievements, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime tells Kotaku.

The Nintendo boss and I rapidly ran through a list of questions about the Wii U's features during a wide-ranging interview a few days ago in Los Angeles. I sought clarity about some of the less-well-publicized aspects of Wii U that will surely matter to the most fervent gamers.

We started by talking about Nintendo's own claim that its vaunted screen-based controller, the GamePad, will only have a battery life of 3-5 hours. (Notably, when I arrived at the interview, the GamePad was being recharged—while being turned on.)

Fils-Aime ducked nothing:

Battery Life

Nintendo had said earlier in the week that Wii U controllers would only hold up to five hours of charge but could be recharged while playing. Prototype controllers at E3 had a power input a the top of the controller; Fils-Aime said finalized units will take charge from the bottom, below the screen, for better comfort if you have it plugged in while playing.

On the length of the battery life, he said, "I have to say that, as a company, we are amazingly conservative when it comes to giving guidance on things like battery life. If you go back to the 3DS discussion on battery life, the numbers we gave before launch vs. the reality of launch were very different. So what I would tell you is that Nintendo is absolutely committed to making sure that the battery life for the Wii U will not get in the way of the gaming experience."

Nintendo had claimed 3-8 hours for the 3DS. Users can judge for themselves if that was a) too little and b) inconsistent with what their 3DS holds.

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Off-TV Play

The ability to view and play Wii U games on the GamePad screen rather than on a TV screen is a "capability [that] is there for every game but it's a developer's choice if they want that to be part of the experience." Nintendo calls it Off-TV Play and the feature will likely be flagged on Wii U game boxes.

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The Xbox-Like Wii U Pro Controller

Come on, Reggie, doesn't your new hardcore-gamer Wii U controller look like a 360 controller? "And you could say that our competitive controllers look a lot like our controller," he retorted. "Fundamentally, ergonomically, it's driven by what feels good in the hand. The controller has been in development for quite some time, and it's based on feedback that, for certain games and for certain experiences, that type of controller offers a richer experience."

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Big Brother in the MiiVerse

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata (Reggie's boss) recently told the L.A. Times that users of Nintendo's expansive new Wii U online service, MiiVerse, will see any messages they submit subjected to several layers of moderation. Given that Nintendo prefers its systems to be kid-safe, and given that MiiVerse is designed to fill the Wii U's boot-up screen and many of its games with text messages from friends and fellow gamers discussing games, the heavy moderation isn't surprising. But it seems potentially heavy-handed, possibly ineffective and liable to slow online communication if messages have to wait to be screened.

Fils-Aime clarified: "The way to think about how we will ensure a positive consumer experience with MiiVerse… first, there are parental controls. As a parent you can choose for your child not to have any MiiVerse conversation. You can do it only with friends. You can do it with everyone.

"The second level is going to be essentially a technology-driven scan to make sure that inappropriate words and inappropriate pictures don't make it onto MiiVerse.

"The third level is going to be the community that will police and flag items.

"The fourth level is for a human review at Nintendo."

But what if, as in the example given by Nintendo when debuting the MiiVerse, I want to post a request for help for a game I'm stuck on? Do I have to wait a while for that to run?

"Let's take that example. I need help with level so-and-so. The technical scan happens. There's no bad words. It happens." No queue? "Correct."

This, Fils-Aime said, is when a Nintendo rep would step in: "If the community is flagging it or if there's an issue where the consumer is continuously trying to send inappropriate content. Because this is account driven, if Stephen Totilo is continuously trying to send inappropriate content then we have the ability to message this."

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System-Level Achievements

Some of Nintendo's top game designers don't want to put Achievements in their games, but Nintendo has put an Achievement-like system in the 3DS, mostly to reward people for feats involving the system's Street Pass networking system. In other words, the system itself has Achievements. "We will have that," Fils-Aime said. "Once you start getting into game-specific [Achievements] that's developer driven." Microsoft may require every game to have Achievements, but, Fils-Aime said, "That is not our philosophy."

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Those Notorious Friend Codes

First the bad news… maybe. Nintendo has not chucked the idea of requiring people to have friend codes, which, on the Wii, were 16-digit codes that people had to exchange before being linked as friends on the system.

And now the better news… "There are friend codes, but it's not the existing friend code system," Fils-Aime said. "What do I mean by that? Here's what I mean: you will be able to identify people as friends and have a certain level of interaction vs. a different level of interaction for the more general population. The method by which you identify someone as a friend is a lot simpler than what's happening today with Friend Codes." (He declined to lay out the new Wii U friend code program just yet.)

The problem I believe people had with the Wii version, I told Fils-Aime, is that adults who owned the system felt like, hey, if I'm an adult, treat me like an adult and let me friend people I've met online without having to call a person and exchange a code or something like that. "Agreed," Fils-Aime said.

"You feel like those people will be happier?" I asked.

"Yes, they will be."

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Wii Digital Content Survives

Fils-Aime confirmed that Wii owners will be able to transfer their game saves and any purchased content from the Wii to the Wii U.

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Data Storage?

Still no big hard-drive for the Wii U, but, Fils-Aime said, "The main message we've communicated is that it's got USB ports so you can keep adding storage to your heart's content." It's not clear how Nintendo expects players to store lots of downloadable expansions and to games like, say, Mass Effect 3. That'll be a follow-up for another day.

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Wii U-3DS Connection?

"It was last year that we talked about a new Smash Bros. that will have some interoperability, some linkage between Wii U and Nintendo 3DS," Fils-Aime said. "Obviously [Smash Bros. lead designer] Mr. Sakurai, having just finished Kid Icarus, hasn't made a ton of progress on that game, but that's going to be the one where we talk about how the two systems could work together on one game."

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Single-Touch vs. Multi-Touch

The Wii U GamePad is not multi-touch. Not a problem, Fils-Aime said, holding a GamePad in his hands. "When we went through the building of this and, given some of the functionality, we thought that single-touch was a more appropriate option, especially when you've got other button configurations."

As he held the controller he reached into the touch screen with one of his thumbs and then tapped the screen with a forefinger. Each time, he kept his other hand on the controller.

Then he put the controller down so he could touch the screen with a finger from each hand. "Is this really the way you want to play a game? I don't think so."

Surely it would be nice to give people options? I suggested it was a cost thing. "Certainly there's a cost to it. Again, we envision this as a controller that you're putting in your hands and you're doing a two-screen experience. The concept of putting it in your lap to do multi-touch for us just feels unwieldy."

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Used Games

"We don't have a policy surrounding used games," Fils-Aime said. "We have not put in place any technology to go after the used game business."

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Black and White Wii U's?

Fils-Aime: We are showing white and black [Wii U's] here [at E3]. We haven't said anything about launch."

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Topics for which Fils-Aime had nothing to announce

New Virtual Console platforms; whether VC games can run on the GamePad, Wii U launch price, Wii U launch line-up.

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Note: I discussed several other Nintendo topics with Fils-Aime, including the issue of how powerful the console is and what that augurs for long-term third-party gaming support. Those will be the subjects of other stories here on Kotaku in the days ahead.

Here's a first look at Dust: An Elysian Tail, an upcoming action role-playing game that will be out this summer for the Xbox 360.

It's super pretty. Very reminiscent of Vanillaware games like Muramasa and Odin's Sphere. Check it out!

Welcome to Kotaku's official forum, known affectionately as Talk Amongst Yourselves. This is the place where we gather on a daily basis to discuss all things video game and existential. Want to talk about new games, old games, games that aren't even out yet? Knock yourselves out!

I really like Heavenly Sword, the PS3 action game that some derisively called "Thong of War" or "Goddess of War". So, it pleases me greatly that TAYpic maestro Pan1da7 pays homage to Ninja Theory's martial arts epic from six years ago. But where's that kooky-crazy sidekick Kat?

You can do funny things with pictures, right? Want everyone on this fine web forum to see? Here's what you do. Post your masterpieces in the #TAYpics thread. Don't forget to keep your image in a 16x9 ratio if you want a slice of Talk Amongst Yourselves glory. Grab the base image here. Don't forget to keep your image in a 16x9 ratio if you want a slice of TAY glory. The best ones will be featured in future installments of Talk Amongst Yourselves.

After teasing us like an after credits scene at a Marvel movie for ages, Zen Studios prepares to unleash four Avengers-themed pinball tables in Marvel Pinball and Pinball FX 2 next week. Let's celebrate with Thanos, the most glove-obsessed superpower in the universe.

Come June 19 for North American PlayStation 3 and June 20 for the Xbox 360 and Euro PS3, Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles translates some of the greatest tales of Earth's Mightiest Heroes into pinball form, including Fear Itself, The Avengers (in movie form), World War Hulk and, my personal favorite, The Infinity Gauntlet, featuring everyone's favorite cleft chin-sporting alien, Thanos.

The Infinity Gauntlet table tells the tale of the celestial quest for five gems of power that when placed into a metal glove make it so bad indeed. It features more than 139 lines of dialog, almost as much as you'd find in a single Silver Surfer comic panel. Considering Marvel's big plans for Thanos, it might be worth checking out.

The full pack runs $9.99 or 800 Microsoft points, depending on how you measure such things.

Maybe you've seen the trailer for Wreck-It Ralph, the upcoming Disney movie about a video game villain who doesn't want to be bad anymore. That clip's got bad guys like Street Fighter's Zangief and Bowser from the Super Mario games opening their hearts in a support group. Those villains earned their bad reputations by body-slamming players in actual games. However, the Fix-It Felix games—the fictional franchise where Ralph's hero-hating happened—weren't playable until this month.

At this year's E3, Disney presented an artfully aged stand-up cabinet where the Donkey Kong-style Fix-It Felix supposedly entertained thousands. As you can see the pictures I took of that machine, it's a nice homage to the art styles used in the coin-op era.

The game that Disney devs have made to recreate the Felix/Ralph rivalry keeps the winking retro spirit alive, too. You can take a quick look Fix-It Felix on an iPad in the video above, which makes it seems like Felix and Mario may belong to the same union. There's nods aplenty to Donkey Kong and a few other classic titles in the touchscreen offering. There's also a Flash version here. Wreck-It Ralph isn't in theaters until November so hopefully Disney has a few more Felix games in the works to show just how nasty Ralph was made out to be.