Experimenting with new ways to make folks pay for their iOS games, Square Enix releases Groove Coaster Zero, injecting new songs and adapting a free-to-play model to Reisuke Ishida's original musical masterpiece.

Groove Coaster Zero takes the fine selection of tracks from the original game, drops in a selection of new free and premium tunes and lets the people play as they please. Unlock free tracks by playing through the game or drop a little cash for more tunes to play with.

As a bonus for fans that own the original game (everyone should), having it installed on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch when Zero launches unlocks three special limited edition gift tracks, not for sale and not available anywhere else.

Enough talk, it's time for me to wander away and play this for hours, ignoring the desperate pleas of my co-workers to write all the things.

Groove Coaster Zero — Free [iTunes]

Since the release of Skylanders Cloud Patrol for iOS last year, fans of Activision's toys-meet-games franchise have been clamoring for a more direct way to interact with their precious plastic playmates than entering in a cold, impersonal numeric code. Tomorrow's release of Skylanders Battlegrounds finally gets a Bluetooth summoning portal into players hands, along with a game that puts it to excellent use.

There's a reason Battlegrounds was selected to be included as a code in the Skylanders Mobile Starter Pack. The first two mobile offerings, Cloud Patrol and the recently-released Lost Islands, use the Skylanders toys in a fire-and-forget fashion. Players need only place their figure on the portal once to register it, and that's it.

Skylanders Battlegrounds, on the other glowing circle of plastic, is an board-meets-action game. At any given time the player can have two different Skylanders in battle. The Bluetooth portal allows those two Skylanders to be swapped out at will.

One can certainly use the portal as they do with the other iOS Skylanders games, registering their toys and then putting them back on the shelf. The creatures under your control are always just a menu away. Using the portal actively just adds a deeper level of interaction to the game, bringing the experience much closer to that of its console cousins.

The portal can also be used to port your figures into Lost Islands and Cloud Patrol, perfect for stupid folks like me that threw away their web codes after opening their toys.

The Battlegrounds game itself isn't too shabby either. The player maneuvers about a hex-based map, clearing it of treasure and enemies before moving on to the next map. Entering the same hex as an enemy unit transports the players' Skylanders to a battle map where they fight waves of enemies in real-time. Players manuever their champions around the map, tapping enemies to begin auto-attacking. Each Skylander has special powers they can learn through gaining experience, adding some depth to the battle system.

It's fun. It's even more fun with the Bluetooth portal.

Skylanders Battlegrounds will be available tomorrow on iTunes for the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch for $6.99. The Skylanders Battlegrounds Mobile Starter Kit comes with the Bluetooth portal, three figures and a code for downloading the game for $49.99.

After suddenly pulling a popular pre-order multiplayer map from Black Ops II online play yesterday, Activision added it back to a new playlist called Chaos Moshpit. Game design director David Vonderhaar from dev studio Treyarch—who delivered the bad news—made it seem possible that the map could come back in a tweet late yesterday:

That was followed by a notice from Treyarch which indicates that all that fuming from the COD faithful didn't fall upon uncaring ears:

It's not the same as having Nuketown 2025 in a normal playlist, as many have asked for, but at least it's back.

I've spent the day playing a very early beta build of The Banner Saga, an upcoming indie turn-based strategy game. Obviously plenty of the game wasn't working, but I can tell you about the bits that were.

In terms of presentation and design, it's a very simple game. So simple that you should consider it more a tabletop or board game experience than what you'd expect from a video game. There are no terrain modifiers, no sweeping views of expansive battlefields, just a flat, open board where two teams of warriors go at it.

Like Battle Chess, then. Only with Vikings (here's how it works).

Setting the game apart are two things. The first is the way The Banner Saga handles fatigue and damage, which basically amounts to the simple rule that the more damage you sustain, the less you can inflict. Sounds cool in theory, and it's just as cool in practice, as it means that as battles drag on, they become not only more tense but more tactical, as you're constantly having to adjust strategies on the fly to account for the fact that guy who just got smashed by an axe can no longer deal the killing blow you had planned.

The second, and this is the real star of this game, is that it's simply beautiful. Trailers don't do it justice when you see it running at 1920x, where every little hair, detail and animation stands out. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, given the game's BioWare pedigree and early shots it's always looked good, but I wasn't ready for it to look so good at such a size.

When you first boot it up, you'll probably find yourself just... staring. There's a hand-drawn quality to the whole thing that makes The Banner Saga really pop, not just because of the quality of the art, but also its palette (there's loads of blues and reds, not so much browns and greys).

If you want to try it out for yourself, the developers have opened up a beta you can sign up for.

The newest Borderlands 2 DLC is an arena-based battle. It's also a set of questlines in a campaign mission to become the biggest, baddest badass of the Badass Crater of Badassery.

Still with me? Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage is all about proving you're the baddest dude or dudette in Pandora, because only the baddliest of baddasses will be allowed access to the vault that requires the blood of a coward to be opened.

Have you ever played the Wii's No More Heroes? Where the protagonist faces off against the next rank of assassins to become the number one assassin (and I suppose the only one even alive)? The plot in Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage is precisely about that kind of competitive killing. Which means, of course, that you'll be introduced to several new characters, each equipped to fight you in their very particular style, whether that's atop a buzzard or on a road bike.

There's an entire new area for you to explore while bloodily making your way through the ranks of badasses. They're all centered around the large, gladiatorial arena. Some are clusters of bandit camps. Others are dark, up and downhill paths around buildings, giving the impression of an elaborate city (which would be awesome, and I would love to see this idea fully realized in future DLCs). Others still are hazardous walks through lava-laden hideouts. It's neat, but there really isn't a lot to dig up in these new areas. They're nowhere near as beautiful or expansive as the last campaign add-on we got for Borderlands 2.

This isn't like Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, the last campaign DLC that graced Gearbox's FPS/RPG sequel. There aren't a ton of side quests to plow through. Even the main mission in Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage is a fairly fast adventure, something I killed in about four hours. You start off in an arena, fighting off waves of enemies and proving yourself worthy enough to enter the ranks of badassery. Then, after you've defeated each individual up the badass ladder by tracking them down across the Badass Crater, you're back in the arena, fighting for the last win.

Mad Moxxi officially becomes your "sponsor" during this tournament. She and Mr. Torgue make allusions to other fighters vying for the badass title to open the vault for all its shiny loot. So you're meant to believe that this is some sort of championship. That there are other fighters out there apparntly attempting to win the belt same as you. But it never actually felt that way. It felt more like someone gave me a hitlist and I assassinated my way through it.

That's not to say that Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage wasn't fun. It certainly was. But whether that's a product of the additional content itself or simply a matter of the base game being so darn fun that all I really need is a proper excuse to revisit it is something I can't quite put my finger on.

But I'm left feeling like this latest campaign DLC wasn't as fleshed out as it could have been. I know people weren't fans of Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, but I still would like to have seen an arena mode unlocked by the end of the DLC campaign. It felt like it was building to it, and just never did. Even the awesome multiple-seater motorbike was never something players could access. Enemy bandits would drive it around, teasing you, but you could never actually drive the thing yourself.

The DLC does introduce a new currency—Torgue tokens that can be spent on Torgue-manufactured gear—and even new items to pick up (like sexy portraits of Mad Moxxi), but this new DLC was simply a series of quests that I was determined to complete and then promptly forget about.

Captain Scarlett is such a chunky, meaty slab of content that I'm still revisiting Oasis to finish sidequests or get through raid-level bosses. Mr. Torgue can't stand up to that depth of content. I often felt that Mr. Torgue was hanging on in the ranks of amazing Borderlands content by the skin of its teeth. It's just not as impressive, not as remarkable.

So what's with the big green "Yes" to the right? I may have had my expectations given Gearbox's track record with Borderlands and DLC in general, but that doesn't mean that this isn't still an entertaining experience that I'm happy to sink more hours into the game for. There are new characters, the return of Tiny Tina (which, as someone who is named Tina and nicknamed Tiny by her mother makes me very happy), and new areas to explore.

Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage could've used the new vehicle it dangled in front of your nose. It could've used a new game mode. It could definitely have done with better loot, because even the vault's burst of new weapons didn't match up with what I already had in my inventory, a scenario that will likely be similar for many of you who have already dug lots of hours into the game. But even with the glaring omissions, it's hard to argue with the super burly dude who has a penchant for inserting curse words into practically every syllable. Seriously, don't argue with him. He yells a lot.

Even over a decade and a half after the release of the anime that started it all, the Evangelion franchise is one of Japan's most lucrative properties. Each year, it floods the market with accessories, spin-off manga, and action figures—and I mean tons and tons of action figures. On top of this, a year can hardly go by without a game or two being released.

In the past, the majority of Evangelion games have been either dating sims or pseudo-fighters. But last year, Grasshopper (the Studio run by the ever eccentric Suda51) set out to create something new: a music game based on the Rebuild of Evangelion movies called Evangelion 3nd Impact. (And no, that's not a typo. It's an Engrish pun mixing the Japanese pronunciation of third, "saado," and second, "sekando" to create "sando." In other words, they pronounce the title of this music game as "sound impact.") But while an Evangelion music game is a downright novel idea, is Evangelion 3nd Impact a musical masterpiece or is it just another run-of-the-mill music title that might as well be forgotten?

Good — Music From Evangelion

If there is one thing 3nd Impact delivers on, it's the promise of Evangelion music. Over the course of the game's thirty stages, you will play nearly every track from Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone and Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance. This includes everything from background music such as "Angel Attack" to the traditional Japanese children's song "Tsubasa Wo Kudasai"—the song sung at the climax to You Can (Not) Advance. There are also new remixes of many of the series' most memorable songs, adding a nice bit of musical discovery to the game as well.

Good — Tells the Story Through The Soundtrack

3nd Impact is structured in the same order chronologically as the films and even follows their plots. So whenever an angel appears, you play the first song to beef up the UN forces for their conventional weapon attack on the angel. The next song either focuses on syncing the pilots to their Evas or is a look into their psyches. In the last song in each set, you set about breaking the angel's AT fields while the fight scene from the film plays out in the background. And best of all, you even get a Misato-narrated "next time on Evangelion" promo video after each angel is defeated.

Mixed — Some Good Music Mini-Games—and Some Bad Ones

3nd Impact has six different types of music games as you play through the 30-track set list. Some of these are very good. The "repeat the pattern" gameplay whenever the UN attacks the angels is great fun, as are the "standard music game" hexagon and AT field destruction levels.

However, the stages where you read the characters' minds are just plain horrible. The "music" is nothing but ambient noise—often with no rhythm. And when you guide the brain scan line through a memory, all you get is a random voice clip from the films. There's no theme, really, just tons of out-of-context quotes. The worst level of this type is for Kaoru, who had had no more than a dozen lines in both films combined—and yes, it uses them all.

Bad — Visual Prompts Fade into the Background

While the graphics are generally good, there is one glaring problem that affects several of the levels: the button prompts can be quite hard to see. This is because the prompts often share a color palette with the background video. It doesn't happen all the time by any means, but when it does, the gameplay practically disappears into the flashy backgrounds, ruining any chance for a high score.

In addition, as you play, your sync-ratio goes up for each correct button press you make. When it reaches 100%, you switch to a second gauge that this time fills up to 400%. However, when one gauge changes into the other, the entire screen fades to white for a moment, making it impossible to see the game. I can't count how many times I lost a perfect combo to a sudden blinding flash of white.

Bad — Same Songs Over and Over

When it comes down to it, there are only about 15 memorable songs in Evangelion 1.11 and 2.22 combined. This means to reach a set list of 30 tracks, about half the levels are either filled with sound clips and ambient noise (5 levels total) or are repeats of previously used songs. The most egregious example of the latter is "Angel Attack" which is used in every single UN versus angel level. That means it is played a grand total of seven times. Granted, each time it's a remix of the original song; but you can only hear the same six-note, constantly repeated bass line so many times before you start to go insane.

Bad — Fails to Hit the Most Musical Moments of the Source Material

When you think of Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance in terms of music, two tracks will no doubt stand out in your mind: the gleeful song about becoming friends as Eva 01 tears apart Asuka's Eva and the children's song "Tsubasa wo Kudasai" playing as the soundtrack to the Apocalypse. Both are discordant with the actions on the screen and thus have a deep emotional effect on the viewer. And, as you would expect in a music game based in part on this movie, both songs are included in 3nd Impact. However, neither are used as the soundtracks to their respective scenes. They are both replaced with the standard battle music and are instead used in levels that showcase a single character as random clips from the movie appear in the background. Simply put, taking these tracks out of their unique, unsettling contexts undercuts the greatest potential the game had.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Evangelion 3nd Impact is a game that falls far short of its potential. On one hand, it looks great and sounds great; and many of these music mini-games are just fun to play. But on the other hand, the occasional graphical hiccups, often repeated tracks, and the utter mishandling of the most musically relevant scenes in the films make this game run-of-the-mill at best. If you need more Evangelion music in your life, you're better off just listening to the soundtracks themselves.

Evangelion 3nd Impact was released on September 29, 2011, for the PlayStation Portable in Japan. There are no plans for an international release.

This is apparently virtual idol Hatsune Miku. Other than the pony tails and blue eyes, the drawing looks nothing like Hatsune Miku. It does look like Louis Vuitton's 2013 spring collection, though. At least they got that right!

Hatsune Miku originally debuted as a character for Vocaloid software, but has since gone on to become Japan's biggest virtual idol, holding live concerts and appearing in her own video games.

Marc Jacobs, the creative director for Louis Vuitton, did this Miku design as part of a collaboration for an upcoming opera titled The End. Debuting this December in Yamaguchi, Japan, the opera will feature Vocaloid singing software and virtual talents like Miku instead of real performers and a live orchestra. Miku will be wearing LV and carrying a Vuitton "Speedy" bag.

Online in Japan, the reaction to the Jacobs design has not been kind, with people pointing out that this design not only doesn't look like Miku, it just doesn't look very cool.

For those who are not familiar with what Hatsune Miku looks like, below is her official illustration:

ルイヴィトンが初音ミク衣装制作、渋谷慶一郎オペラに登場 [げーむがーるちゃんねる]

---

Binge drinking. Jerking off. Squids. It's just another wild night in the world of Final Fantasy.

That's because someone, let's call that person a genius, decided to combine screenshots from Japanese role-playing games Final Fanatasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2 with Texts from Last Night.

Texts from Last Night, of course, is a website that collects humorous and amazing text message snippets.

The resulting Tumblr is Texts from FFXIII. It's been going strong for a month or so now, but in case you are new to the party, here's a sample, with Lightning, Snow, Vanille, and the other Final Fantasy XIII characters saying things they never would, but might just send via text message:

There's more in the Tumblr link below. Much more.

Texts From FFXIII [Tumblr Thanks, Muckamuck for the tip!]

Akihiro Hino, the guy who runs game maker Level-5, usually looks like he does in this Game Watch Impress photo. Or sometimes, he looks like complete hell.

That's why Hino was quick to jokingly ask for forgiveness because his manga counterpoint looks "way too handsome". He also added that he was "a little happy" about this manga. He should be!

Here's the cover of a new, special Inazuma Eleven manga, with Hino on the cover. Hino, in dreamboat manga form, that is.

---

The title of this manga is The Story of Inazuma Eleven's Birth, and it also features Professor Layton, among other Hino creations.

。ちょっとイケメンに描かれすぎているのはご勘弁w [@AkihiroHino via インサイド]

---

When you think of Evangelion, what comes to mind? Giant robots? Angsty teens? Massive amounts of religious imagery? A complete mind-fuck ending?

But what about the soundtrack, does that leap to the forefront of your mind? Well apparently it did for Grasshopper Manufacture—the creators of No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw—when they created Evangelion: 3nd Impact.

3nd Impact (pronounced "sound impact" for those who were wondering) is a collection of music mini-games set to music from the Rebuild of Evangelion films that shows clips from those two movies in the background as you play. These mini-games vary from traditional "press the button when the shapes line up" gameplay to "repeat the pattern" rhythm games. There are even a few odd stages where you must combine movie dialogue with a soundtrack of ambient noise.

To see how the game looks in action, check out the video above.

Evangelion 3nd Impact was released on September 29, 2011, for the PlayStation Portable in Japan. There are no plans for an international release. Stay tuned to Kotaku East for the full import preview later today.