Okay, technically this is $475 worth of evil, as this is the exclusive version of First 4 Figures' 1/4 Scale "Master Arts" Ganondorf Center Piece, which comes with an additional laughing head, but you get the point.

Now that First 4 Figures has gotten Wolf Link, Link with Epona and Zant out of the way, it's time for the main event. Standing a (relatively) massive 23 inches tall (which means in real life he's seven and a half feet tall), Ganondorf is primed and ready to pose dramatically while subtitles reveal his evil intentions. Cast in poly-stone, hand-finished and hand-painted, he even comes with a hand-made cape fitted with wire for the dramatic posing.

While batch numbers are still being determined, expect these to be made in extremely low quantities. The regular edition (sans laughing head) is available for preorder for $449.99, with the exclusive yours at $479.99.

Sometimes it feels like gaming has two camps: Those who play sports games, and those who don't. It's not unlike the jocks and nerds in high school, really. Could non-sports gamers find something to love in sports games? Should Mass Effect players give Madden a shot? How do sports tell stories, and how are story-based games like sports? And what would a Friday Night Lights video game look like?

Someone get a fire extinguisher! Those are some… Burning Questions.

Jason: Hey Kirklbro! Sure has been a while since we've done a Burning Questions. We tried to do it live in Kinja, but that didn't work so well for a number of reasons. Before that, when was the last time we did this? Pre-E3?

Kirk: Hi Jasonbro! Hmm... I think the last time we did a Burning Questions was in like, 1979. In other words: A long time ago. Maybe our questions over the last few weeks haven't been all that Burning?

Jason: Maybe they haven't!

So today we're going to talk about sports! (This is where half of our readers immediately close the page.)

Kirk: Yes, sports! It's funny, there's always this apologetic vibe when video game people write about sports, isn't there? Like, "Oh, sorry, we're going to talk about sports. But it'll be fun! Don't go!"

Jason: There's definitely a stigma. At the risk of biting into stale stereotypes, maybe it's that whole geek/jock high school mentality that draws clear lines between People Who Play Sports and People Who Play Video Games. Do you think those lines exist today?

Kirk: It's hard to say beyond my own personal experience, but there's definitely a very different social component to watching sports than there is to playing video games. The times when I've watched sports regularly, I've always done it in a group, you know? It's a much more social thing.

Jason: Well first of all, let's distinguish between playing sports and watching them.

And then maybe we can get into that glorious hybrid, sports video games.

Kirk: Owen is going to read this and get so mad.

Jason: I heard he secretly hates sports.

Kirk: If I knew that much about the inner workings of Madden, I might hate sports too.

Jason: Ha. So. Social experiences. One of the big reasons people go to live sports events is to be with their kin, cheer among people who share their passion for a given team. There's this sense of community there. Like, we might all sitting around at a stadium thinking "woohoo, everyone here loves the Jets. I'm among friends." You're all there because you really care about that team, not because you care about one another—as opposed to, say, playing video games with your friends, which you do less because of the games themselves and more because you want to do something with people you enjoy.

Kirk: That's true—though as I found when attending a Barcraft event in San Francisco, sometimes they do that for video games too. But pro StarCraft is the exception, and there's still not quite a tradition around it like there is with, say, Sunday Night Football. I gather that's one of your favorite days of the week, right?

Jason: Indeed it is. For a number of reasons. But hold on: when you went to watch pro StarCraft, did you care about the players? Did it matter to you who won?

Kirk: Me personally? No. I didn't know enough. But a lot of other people did, folks who had been watching the entire tournament and follow pro gaming more closely than I do. It seemed a lot like watching an exciting game of football with a bunch of fans—it's less exciting for me because I don't have as much of a stake, but it's still very fun.

Jason: Really? They were invested in certain players?

Kirk: Sure, the ones who'd been watching seemed to care. Then again, I'm not sure about that - do you get the sense that there's team/player loyalty in StarCraft like there is in, say, the NFL?

Jason: Maybe among the most hardcore of the hardcore. I occasionally watch StarCraft games and I could not care less about the outcome. I just want to see exciting things happen. But yeah, that's an exception, and eSports seem to be evolving more and more every day. Maybe in twenty years we'll all have favorite Quake teams.

What's most fun about watching sports, though, is just getting invested and passionate and putting all of your hope into a single team. It's almost like gambling! (I may or may not have a serious gambling addiction.)

Kirk: Right, I've definitely found that to be the case too. I went to the University of Miami, and though I didn't go there for the sports program, it was super fun to root for our football team. We won a championship my junior year, and it was HOT. (Let's not get into the current state of Miami football. It was glorious at the time.) Same thing with Hoosier basketball. I've always liked having a team that I believe in, that I root for. Sports are about that journey, you know? It's funny - people say that sports are pure games, that they don't have a narrative. Like that's one way they're different from video games? But I don't think that's true at all. Every football game, every basketball game has a narrative. Seasons have narratives, teams even have narratives, narratives that span decades!

Jason: Yep. If you don't believe us, check out Deadspin! There are all sorts of interesting, heartwarming, and funny stories in the world of sports every single day. And that's just part of the appeal. Sometimes sports can be packed with so much strategy that I feel like I'm watching the physical versions of RPGs.

Football, for example. Football is my favorite thing to watch, mostly because, as our mutual friend Chris Dahlen pointed out in a great article for GameSpy a few years ago, it's essentially a role-playing game. Teams take turn attacking, defending, and trying to score as many points as possible—or reduce their opponent's hit points—before time runs out. What's not to love?

Kirk: And now Madden is adding all these almost MMO-like career options, where you make a player and shepherd him through an entire career... it's very cool. Owen talked about the possibility of making an older player and leading him into retirement and eventually mentoring/coaching - that sounds neat, though the Madden guys told me they wouldn't be able to get it into this game. Still though, that kind of storytelling is really cool, because it's real drama. There's a reason that so many of the most inspirational movies are sports movies, you know? And let's not even get started on Friday Night Lights. Or wait, okay, let's. What would a Friday Night Lights video game look like?

Jason: The best (worst?) thing about the football in Friday Night Lights was that it was always "omg we're down at halftime because of some team emotional issue. Time for Coach to give a motivational speech so Saracen can throw a last-minute touchdown that spirals in the air for like 45 minutes!" I don't know if that'd make for an interesting game. It'd be like nothing but those scripted JRPG battles where you know you can't win and you just have to wait around while everything plays out.

Kirk: Well, I disagree with that assessment—there were plenty of times when they played regular games, or routed their opponent, or lost in the end. And really, FNL was about the town and the people—all of the things adjacent to Football. In other words, it embraced the stories that happen around sports, not the story of sports.

But anyway! On to another subject, it's funny you mention JRPGs - You and I have a running joke about the only games you like to play: Madden, StarCraft and JRPGs. I get the first two, since they're both very sport-y, but the JRPGs thing used to throw me. What, if anything, do you think JRPGs have in common with sports?

Jason: Lots of melodrama and the characters all say weird shit?

Kirk: Haaa!

Jason: It depends on the sport. Football, for example, is all about the big play; your team isn't winning a football game unless it pulls off a pivotal turnover or gets some key yards at the best possible time. Basketball, on the other hand, is just a constant grind. The only way to win is to keep up the energy and never stop relenting. JRPGs—or at least JRPG combat—often feels like a strange mixture of the two.

Jason: Man, I LOVE fantasy sports. Not fantasy baseball, but football. Have you played either?

Kirk: I played fantasy football exactly once, and I was terrible. I was the guy who never checked in and made it less fun for everyone else. I was the worst.

Jason: Yeah, I'd kick you the hell out of my league.

Kirk: And I'd deserve it.

Jason: So you didn't like it?

Kirk: The thing is, I did like it, and I can TOTALLY see how people get into it, but I didn't make that initial buy-in time investment. I didn't get close to the point where I was checking my standings constantly and following every game. I'd imagine, actually, that fantasy baseball is better for that, since there are so many more games. All my New York friends love fantasy baseball—I just don't have the space for it, maybe.

Jason: Baseball seems like even more of an investment! For fantasy football, all you have to do is make sure your roster is updated once a week for 14-17 weeks. The football season is very short. 16 games per team. Baseball is 162!

Kirk: Yeah, but surely the return on that investment is more involving? I guess it kinda taps into why people prefer baseball to football, or vice versa.

Jason: Well, to answer that we have to get into why people like fantasy football. Contrary to what your average layperson seems to believe, what's appealing about fantasy football isn't the fact that you get to pretend to GM a team. What's appealing is that it gives you a reason to care about every single football game. You're invested. In addition to having a favorite team, you now have lots of individual players to cheer for. (And if, like most of us, you play for money, you're quite literally invested in every game.)

Kirk: Right, that makes sense. It gives you one more avenue to express your fanhood, and one more way to feel invested in the game. Maybe even literally. Here's a potentially controversial (or just plain misguided) thought: in a way, fantasy sports are like all these social media and mobile game tie-ins we see cropping up around AAA games. Things like the Assassin's Creed Facebook game or the Madden mobile stuff. They let us attach ourselves to the games we love in new ways. The difference is, I'd imagine that fantasy football evolved organically in living rooms around the country, where most tie-in games these days are created specifically to hook players when they're not actually playing the game.

Jason: That's an interesting point! And yeah, you're right about the organic vs machinated aspect, but I do like the idea of finding new ways to get invested in games or worlds. Almost makes me want to reconsider my "really don't give a shit about all this companion stuff" policy. Let me tell you: if Konami ever released a Suikoden Facebook game or mobile app, I'd buy twenty copies.

Kirk: Yeah, I've always felt like Madden is a game where the mobile and tie-in stuff makes sense, since it's so similar with actual football. Which brings me to my next thing—I don't actually play too many sports games, but this year, I'm going to get back into Madden. I haven't really played video game football in like ten years, so what should I be looking out for?

Jason: That is awesome. I am excited to kick your ass. (And we must invite Kotaku readers to join us in a league.) The cool thing about Madden is that you can jump in pretty easily and use some of the automatic play-calling modes to help ease you into the game. At first you might not even know when to run or pass. But gradually you'll start to learn more and more about nuances and complexities to the point where you're shouting things like "nickel package" and "wildcat" with no hesitation. It'll be a lot of fun.

Kirk: Nice. You know, I actually played football in middle school.

Jason: What position?

Kirk: I was a guard. I was... well... it was, in the end, not my sport. I wound up being a swimmer, which isn't a very "gamey" sport. I guess our locker room was gamey, but you know what I mean.

Jason: Aha. So how was your blocking?

Kirk: I was way too tall and skinny to be a guard, and nowhere near bloodthirsty enough. So, not good. I did like the pace of football, compared to other team sports I played and didn't really love, more fluid sports like rugby and soccer. I like the strategic element of Football. What about you, did you play any sports in high school?

Jason: Tennis? Does that count? We didn't even have a football team at my school.

Kirk: Tennis totally counts!

Jason: Tennis is great. Except their point system makes no sense.

Kirk: "What do you call a tennis match between Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder?"

Jason: Let's not get into that. But yeah, to get back to Madden: you played the newest one the other day at EA's press event in San Francisco, didn't you? What'd you think?

Kirk: I actually didn't have a chance to play—I talked to Yuri Bialoskursky aout the game a bit, but there's just so much to the game, I'm going to have to take it on my own turns, not at a press event. The Wii U version looks cool, though—I love the idea of using a touch-screen to modify plays.

Kinda related to that: one thing that always gets me down is how there's a new Madden each year. People make the same complaint about Call of Duty, really. Do you buy Madden each year?

Jason: I like to buy it every two years. Same with NBA 2k. I feel like the changes are just drastic enough every other year to warrant that $60 investment. And there really are a lot of changes, which is why the million-something people who buy Madden on its annual launch days don't have a problem buying it every single year. It's the type of thing you only complain about if you don't actually play the game.

(Disclosure: EA is sending me this year's version.)

Kirk: That seems smart, actually—every two years. It's not like Call of Duty where there's a new story, and a ton of new gameplay stuff. That's an interesting thought, that people would complain about Madden even if they don't even play it. Then again, people do that all the time with all sorts of games! We started this conversation out talking about the divides between sports fans and gamers—let's wrap it up by mentioning the divide between sports games fans and other-game fans. There are so many people out there who own consoles who literally only play Fifa every year. That's it! Just Fifa. It's a different breed of gamer than your Valve-obsessed, Skyrim-modding chiptune listener. But should that be the case? To try to answer the Burning Question in our headline: Should video game fans care more about sports?

Jason: I think so! To get back to what I brought up at the beginning, I think that for us geeks there might still be stigmas attached to sports, stigmas that prevent some of us from really enjoying something we could get a whole lot of enjoyment out of. Whether it's strategy, narrative, or just straight-up passion, I think there's a lot to love once you start getting into a game like football or basketball. It's a different type of enjoyment than video games, but it can appeal to similar parts of our lizard brains.

Kirk: Maybe Madden would have more appeal if it starred fabulously coiffed teenagers with huge swords?

Jason: Don't even get me started. I'm getting Square Enix on the phone right now.

Kirk: I for one can't wait to play Madden XIV II: Absence of Dream Descent.

Jason: Madden [012] duo-dissidia-roethlisberger

Kirk: I'd play it.

Ralph Baer basically invented video games. During the 1960s, when television itself was still fairly newfangled, he was piecing together how the first video game console, launched in 1972, could work.

It wasn't just video games that Baer figured out, though. The folks over at Gamasutra have shared this 30-minute video from a German computer history museum showing that back in 1973—just about forty years ago—Baer was already guessing what home multimedia systems would eventually do.
As Gamasutra describes, "Using technology available at the time... Baer demonstrates a concept for something akin to an all-in-one multimedia box that plays games, lets users shop by mail-order, has educational components, and even pay-for-TV applications."

Before modern microprocessors, before the internet, before any of the systems that make the Xbox work came along, before video games themselves were even widely popular and successfully mass-marketed, Baer figured out what we were going to do with it all forty years later.

Video game inventor demonstrates multimedia box...in 1973 [Gamasutra]

One of the reasons that Angry Birds is such a success is that it just feels good to play. Particularly on touchscreen devices, the feeling of pulling back the angry bird and letting 'er rip is uniquely satisfying.

But even a touch screen is no substitute for actual tactile feedback. If you use this tangible controller cooked up by some students at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, you'll have all the tactile feedback you could desire.

I mean… just look at it! Check out the little TNT detonator! I.. really want this. Too bad there's only one.

You can find out all about how they made it at the controller's project page.

So I was playing the upcoming Sims expansion, The Sims 3: Supernatural, at the EA Summer Showcase last week. Here's the thing: I'd never played The Sims before. I sure learned a lot about how to go on a better date though!

Tip #1: Know how to control yourself before you go on out on a date. I mean this in a literal sense, sure: I didn't really know how to DO things when I started playing the expansion. But I also mean this in a metaphorical sense, too—consent is important!

Once I got my bearings, it was already too late. The date was going terribly. My date wasn't happy at all!

Tip #2: Don't go on a date until you know you're ready for it.

The thing about The Sims 3: Supernatural? It features—you guessed it—supernatural beings. Witches and vampires, that sort of thing.

My character started getting upset because things weren't going so well. My character was also a werewolf. I'm, uh, not sure that my date knew that.

Tip #3: You should consider telling your date about Really Big Awful Secrets. Like the fact that you might be a freaking werewolf. Don't think that that sort of thing might be obvious just because you're a huge hairy dude.

It wasn't a full moon or anything, but werewolves can turn in the game if they get too angry or upset. So there we were, my date and I, things kind of going downhill, when all of a sudden things get worse when an aggravated lycanthrope appears.

Tip #4: Don't turn into a werewolf in the middle of a date. And for those of you for which that doesn't apply, just don't lose your cool, okay?

Needless to say, my transformation didn't really help things and the date was a disaster. Whoops!

At least next time I'll probably have a better date, though I'm a little irked that it seems like mass media lied to me. Aren't chicks supposed to dig that Twilight stuff? Damn.

On August 19, Scott Pilgrim (a game released in 2010) will get some DLC, adding online multiplayer and a new character, Wallace.

Massively multiplayer online gamers have different needs than those of first-person shooter or real-time strategy fans. They need social interaction. They need extremely comfortable chairs. They need all of the Cheetos.

But most of all they need buttons. So many buttons.

PC peripheral manufacturers have sensed this need and have responded with specialized MMO mice featuring so many buttons. Today we take a look at three of them — the Logitech G600, the Razer Naga 2012 and the Cyborg M.M.O. 7 from Mad Catz — to determine which is most worthy of your MMOney.

Each of our three contenders were used extensively for at (the very) least a full week by yours truly, with Funcom's The Secret World the primary punishment of choice. With only seven powers active at any one time it's a bit easy on these incredibly programmable devices. Perhaps a World of Warcraft raid healer would be a more tasking test, but alas, I am not raid healer.

Before we begin breaking them down, let's take a look at the basic statistics and acronyms that make an MMO mouse an MMO mouse. I started with the most important. It bears noting that each of these units features a braided cable, but only because I wish everything I owned had a braided cable, even things that don't need cables. I'm a fan.

Impressive statistics, to be sure, but nothing (other than price) that sets one unit miles above the rest. The Logitech G600 features the highest DPI setting, for instance, but we're playing MMOs with these, not Call of Duty. The only modern popular MMO that even bothers with mouse-based aiming is Tera, and the hit boxes on its bad guys are so large you're probably sitting in one right now and don't even know it.

Adjusted for the realities of the genre, we're starting with a relatively even playing field. Let's fix that, category by category.

Style

There is nothing wrong with looking like a standard gaming mouse with some extra buttons on the side; I do not fault the G600 or the Naga for this. They look fine, even in those pants. They've both got colored LED lighting, a feature dedicated Microsoft Office mice have traditionally shied away from. They look functional, and that's great.

The Cyborg M.M.O. 7 looks like it's about to transform and roll out. It's got shiny metal orange accents, grooved dials, and a quirky logo that looks like Deadshot from DC Comics. And yes, there is colored LED lighting.

Cyborg M.M.O. 7

Comfort

This category is particularly fun, as the manufacturers of two of the three competitors have gone great lengths to ensure that any gamer's hand can rest comfortably atop their devices. Both the Cyborg ad the Naga come with extra bits that gamers can swap out, essentially letting them reconfigure the ergonomic profile on the fly.

The Naga comes with three different side panels so no matter what grip players prefer.

The Cyborg M.M.O. takes the customization a step further, providing two additional palm rests (one rubberized and one raised), two side panels (one rubberized and one with a pinkie rest) and a series of tiny weights for those heft queens out there.

Which one feels the best? Neither. The Naga feels nice enough and is perfectly well-suited for extended play. The Cyborg's futuristic style works against it here; it's just not a very comfortable device. There are pokey bits everywhere.

Meanwhile, the Logitech G600 feels wonderful out of the box, and none of those extra bits made either other mouse any more comfortable. It's the third button on the right keeping three fingers on the same level at all times that makes all the difference.

Winner: Logitech

Software / Programming

Each of the three contenders is fully capable of programming more macros and additional actions that you could ever possibly use in your standard MMO. They can all swap profiles on the fly. The Logitech's third top button acts as a shift key. The Cyborg has a two-position shift key and a three-position MMO mode switch. In short, if you're looking to make any button do any thing, all of these can do those any things.

It all comes down to how easy it is to make them do those many things, and in that department there is a definite winner.

The M.M.O. 7 software is very pretty and incredibly stylish, but a bit too unwieldy for my taste. In trying to be sleek and sexy it's sacrificed usability, a running theme for the unit.

Keeping with the theme of running themes, the Logitech G600 software interface is clean and neat. You've got buttons, you assign things to them. Pretty simple. Maybe a little too simple.

Which brings us to the happy medium.

Not too basic, not too complicated, the Naga uses Razer's Synapse 2.0 software for customization, and it is excellent. From profile creation to macro recording to customizing the LED lighting, everything is right here, easy to find and easy to operate without being so simple I feel insulted.

As an added bonus, if you've got additional Razer peripherals you can easily map mouse buttons to functions on those devices as well. I can use my Naga to set the mouse sensitivity on my Razer Taipan. I will never need to do this, but I find comfort that I can.

Winner: Razer

Ease of Use

And so we come down to the most important category. A mouse can be pretty, programmable, versatile and comfortable, but if you can't press the buttons it's just a fancy arrow moving device.

This is where the Cyborg M.M.O. 7 stumbles. It's got all the bells and high tech whistles, but it's a bitch to get used to using all the special buttons on its surface. There's a four-way switch that's also a button. There's a metal dial. There is a button on the top of the mouse that locks the unit to obscure functions that really screw up the normal day-to-day operation of your computer. A button that, until recently, users were unable to lock.

So that's a no on the Cyborg. This contest comes down to a knock-down, drag-out fight between the Razer Naga and the Logitech G600, two units that feature 12 buttons in four rows of three on the right side. Which unit's buttons are better?

You know I love you, Razer, but Logitech edges you out.

The G600's irregular ridged rubberized buttons are just a little easier to access in the heat of battle than the Naga's smooth, flat ones. Figure in the added stability provided by the third top button, and Logitech wins it by a nose.

Winner: Logitech

And the winner is...

The Cyborg M.M.O. 7 is an incredibly striking mouse whose distinctive shell houses some interesting ideas, but those ideas were implemented without much thought given to comfort or practicality.

The Razer Naga 2012 Edition is a fine piece of MMO mousing hardware. There is nothing overwhelmingly negative I can say about it. If not for the inclusion of the third pointing device, it might have taken home the non-existent Kotaku Hardware Battles trophy.

But then Logitech swooped in and stole it.

I must say I did not expect Logitech to perform as well as it did in this competition. Both Razer and Mad Catz go after gamers ferociously, aiming all of their marketing and design might squarely at the cutting-edge PC gaming crowd. Even the packaging screams "this is gaming gear!"

Logitech just quietly sits down next to the PC gamer, sets an unassuming box on the table and gently pushes it forward. Oh, you like playing MMO games? Maybe you should try this, it's pretty good. You might like it.

And I did.

Winner: Logitech G600

Last week, we showed you the trailer for A Fistful of Rupees, the Zelda/Western mash-up directed by YouTube film group The Game Station. Here's the full thing.

Above is Episode 1 - The Wisdom. Episodes 2 and 3 are below. Enjoy.

If you're as anxious as I am to get your hands—er, eyes—on Sleeping Dogs, you can watch the folks over at Machinima play through the game live, right here.

Personally, I'm going to ignore everything about this game since it's currently sitting snug in my bag waiting to be opened and devoured.

In today's portable edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Domini N wonders when everyone is going to get around to forecasting the death of the PS Vita like they did with the 3DS last year.

You know, I really, really don't want to have to say this, but why have I seen no "Vita is DOOOOMMMMMEEED!!!!!! " articles on Kotaku, or any game news site for that matter? During the summer of last year, every major gaming site was jumping on the 3DS hate wagon, calling it a failure, stating it was doomed, etc. At that point in its life, the 3DS had sold 4-5 million units. Keep in mind that this was before the supposed killer apps came out, a decision I agree is utterly stupid on Nintendo's part. Still, everyone knew they were on the horizon, but continued to bash the system/Nintendo in their actions.

The Vita has been out for a longer period of time in terms of day one sales anywhere, has had at least 3 "Killer" games (Uncharted, Gravity Rush, and Persona 4: The Golden) be released in various regions, and the system has managed to sell anywhere from 50-66% of what the 3DS sold at this point in time. So why aren't we getting few, if any "Vita is a failure" articles? I mean, the general ideas I'm getting from the gaming media is to wait until the holidays before you can call it doomed. Why is everyone acting so hopeful for the Vita, but were constantly bashing the 3DS at this point last year?

I'm not trying to bash the Vita or praise the 3DS, as I have the later and am planning to pick up the former when Persona 4: The Golden comes out. I'm just asking a question that I don't really see being addressed. Maybe I've not been looking in the right locations or I haven't seen them, but I'm just not getting it.