Planetside 2 launched just last week. Have you guys picked up the large-scale first-person shooter yet? What do you think so far?

Or maybe you haven't picked it up yet. Or, if you're like our own Luke Plunkett, maybe you've had trouble getting into the game. Maybe you have a few questions for the MMOFPS's senior art director, Tramell Isaac, and creative director Matt Higby.

Fortunately for you, including those of you who have been playing and stumbling on new questions, they're right here answering your questions as of 3pm Eastern. Bring your best questions!

Call of Duty games have a distinctive aural imprint. The whizzing bullets, grunting allies, ringing impacts and of course, the screams of the many men you kill. But what if the game were stripped down to only that last—what if the only things you heard in Call of Duty: Black Ops II were the combatants' voices?

It's actually possible to do this—easy, even. Just go into the menu and turn the "SFX" and "Music" levels to zero. Jorge Albor over at the Experience Points blog had the idea to see what it was like, and the result, as seen in the video above, is a surreal soundscape of anguish. The echo-y, lonesome screams of dying men masked by none of the accompanying gunfire histrionics.

Says Albor:

This is not the right way to play Call of Duty, I know. Like a sitcom needs a laugh-track, the shooter needs its musical flare and auditory foliage. Without it, the violence is naked. The cries of pain seem almost free of cause, brief and alone with no aural cues to mark their passing.

I went ahead and tried this on the opening chapter of the game, and the results were more humorous than chilling—a bunch of guys issuing the exact same grunt over, and over, and over again as they died. I also found that the lack of bombastic audio actually made the game easier, as it does with many other games. Explosive game audio is cool, but also frequently overwhelming and distracting, particularly in linear single-player games where locational audio data isn't useful.

This approach to playing Black Ops II is a lot of things: Interesting look at an isolated aspect of sound design, accidental commentary on the weirdness of video game murder, secondary commentary on how vital sound effects are to this kind of game. But beyond all that, it's just kinda eerie.

The Sound Of Violence [Experience Points]

What if a real-life fist bump could make something in a game explode? Or if playing a co-op game required you to scoot over to your partner and literally join hands with him/her? Sounds crazy? Well, then call the folks behind Combiform crazy.

Yes, the hybrid gamepads being crowdfunded on Kickstarter can be used as standard gamepads. They've got Bluetooth, so you can pair them up with smartphones or PCs. But the craziest thing about the Combiforms is the way they merge twitchy physicality with gameplay. Dig the gal and guy at doing the crazy Switch thing at 3:00 in the Kickstarter video, for example. And those games where you shove your controllers onto another player's to beat them in a competition. Don't play with someone you hate!

I am no stranger to the terrible experience being peddled with the Xbox 360's Kinect. And let's not even discuss the quiet, embarrassing withering of the PlayStation Move. And the Wii U is a move back towards hardcore game experiences for Nintendo. So, yes, it's easy, fun and even a little correct to diss motion-control nowadays.

But what's tantalizing about the Combiforms is the idea that all motion control really needs to do is to evolve. If a device could mutate into form factors that serve more than one purpose and become easier to use across platforms, then you might see more acceptance for video gaming that happens in physical space. Insane, maybe? But it also might be awesome.

Combiform [Kickstarter]

Another day, another entry into the file of troubled Kickstarter successes. The Oculus Rift, a virtual reality gaming headset which raised millions of dollars on the site this summer, has been delayed from December until at least March 2013, and possibly through April.

After the Rift's coming out party at this year's E3 (where our fearless leader Stephen Totilo tried out the "impressive" headgear on the then-unnamed Doom 3: BFG Edition), Oculus founder Palmer Luckey took to everyone's favorite crowd funding site to ask for a cool $250,000. Finding himself in that heady time of explosive gaming Kickstarters, Luckey suddenly had just under $2.5 million dropped in his lap and a BFG-load of dev kits to ship out, supposedly by December 2012.

Today the official Oculus Rift Kickstarter was updated with news that shipment of said kits has been delayed at least until next spring, as Luckey and his team deal with the "overwhelming response"—some 7,500 unit requests.

Compounding the problem, the original 5.6'' LCD screens the Rift prototypes used are no longer available, forcing a switch to a new 7'' LCD that brings with it a new form factor. While this will obviously enhance the viewing experience, it also adds 30 grams of weight to the headset, not an insignificant amount considering you'll be strapping it onto your face for several hours at a time.

While the causes of the delay seem reasonable—Oculus has put together a detailed timeline illustrating it here—this latest development further illustrates the Monkey's Paw potential of unbounded fundraising and micro-donations. After all, it's much easier to pay for the experience of playing Doom 3 in a fully immersive 3D world than it is to create it. Considering that these issues are arising at the dev stage, questions about Oculus Rift's transition to mass-market commercial sale are sure to arise.

Editor's Note: The mysterious person known as Superannuation shows up every two weeks like a new paycheck, if you had a job that paid you in gaming rumors and secrets, all sourced to publicly available information.

What was hiding in plain sight this time? Plenty, though in this edition, Superannuation is seeing if the available evidence adds up to, of all things, a next-gen Dragon Age and a multiplayer Star Wars game. You be the judge. The evidence follows:

An EA Shanghai level designer who worked on a vertical slice of Dragon Age III earlier in the year states on his LinkedIn page that the "Scope of the DAIII has been chaged [sic], which will target next gen platform [sic] and will be postpone [sic] to 2014." The claim of the delay is probably a misinterpretation of the rumors of the RPG sequel's delays from fiscal 2013 (before March 31, 2013) to fiscal 2014 (after that date), which was pegged to EA wanting to avoid the rushed development criticisms that dogged Dragon Age II. However, those "development cycle" posits are seemingly not entirely accurate, as the designer says that EA wanted to refocus Dragon Age III from a current-generation title to a marquee next-generation RPG.

Dragon Age III coming to next-generation platforms should not be a surprise to anyone, as EA tellingly excluded any specifics on platforms in the game's September announcement—a way of saying that the intended platforms have not yet been announced.

* * *

Last week, Splash Damage, developer of multiplayer-oriented shooters Brink and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, threw up a teaser on its website for what seems to be a project announcement on Thursday, November 29th at 11:29 (GMT?).

Earlier this year, the London-based studio said it was completely moving to free-to-play multiplayer games development and establishing two sister companies—Warchest and Fireteam—to allow the firm to publish and provide online infrastructure for its own games, respectively. The first title from the newly vertically-integrated Splash Damage is a turn-based iOS strategy game Rad Soldiers, which was supposed to be out in June but still is in open beta.

In addition to RAD Soldiers, Splash Damage is developing two other projects—a PC exclusive due out by year end and a console game slated to be released sometime next year, both of which are free-to-play. CEO Paul Wedgwood said Splash Damage's staff is divided with half working on self-funded, self-published endeavors and the other half focused on "a blockbuster [free-to-play] game for a external publisher."

In July, Splash Damage posted a job listing in relation to a "new soon to be disclosed first person shooter" that is "an exciting new IP." Chronologically speaking, this appears to suggest that the PC title apparently due out by year's end is a new IP FPS. Wedgwood spoke rather fondly about the idea of being able to experience different facets of an IP on various platforms, so perhaps this is an FPS complement to the RAD Soldiers universe? Various platforms, so perhaps this is an FPS complement to the RAD Soldiers universe? (Also, the announcement is likely either this game or a release date for RAD Soldiers.)

Additionally, a sound designer who left Splash Damage last month mentions in his CV work on "Unannounced AAA Franchise Console title" alongside RAD Soldiers and an "Unannounced AAA PC Title," indicating the aforementioned contract title is their free-to-play console game. The bit about a franchise title is perhaps a bit curious considering that a report circulated late last year suggesting the studio just signed a contract with Disney to develop a multiplayer Avengers game utilizing the tech they built for Brink; however, Wedgwood quickly put a kibbosh on such speculation, denying that the company was working with Disney or "building a pop culture IP."

This franchise could very well be a gaming IP, but free-to-play titles for the Western market are often the sort of thing that publishers prefer to handle internally. If you don't take the Wedgwood "pop culture IP" denial at face value, arbitrarily guessing things, the very multiplayer shooty-sounding mysterious XBLA (and presumably PSN as well) title Star Wars First Assault appears to be a good fit for Splash Damage, given the studio's track record of multiplayer shooters. Also, LucasArts already tried to create the multiplayer-oriented Star Wars once before with Slant Six's Star Wars Battlefront Online, which was put on hold because the publisher couldn't find a place for the game in its slate. And should this theory prove to be true, it would mean that Splash Damage would, ironically enough, now be working with (what is now a subsidiary of a subsidiary of) Disney.

* * *

Back in May, Phosphor Games Studio posted a job opening for an Unreal Engine 4 programmer that went surprisingly unnoticed. According to the listing, Phosphor is working with Epic's programmers "to develop new features for UE4," and also previously assisted with engineering new features in UE3.

The Chicago-based studio, which has developed Unreal-powered mobile titles like the horror shooter Dark Meadow and Zynga-published adventure Horn as well as some for-hire work, is the second external company to disclose its involvement in helping Epic create Unreal Engine 4. Newcastle's Pitbull Studio, a for-hire firm founded by folks from the now-defunct Midway Newcastle, revealed earlier this year that it was working on UE4 as well as a UE4-based game.

* * *

Finally, Jim Charne—a Los Angeles-based games industry attorney whose clients include the likes of Bungie, Ready At Dawn, NaturalMotion, and an assortment of independent developers—filed a trademark registration last month for "CSR Heist." One of those aforementioned clients, NaturalMotion, released the freemium iOS racer CSR Racing this past summer, and this registration likely hints that the developer is prepping some sort of cops-and-robbers-themed followup.

In what could be the worst timing ever, Kris Kringle (Santa, if you prefer) has fallen into a mid-life crisis in CastleVille. Christmas is in jeopardy until we help knock him out of his rut and help him remember his duties this holiday season. This comes via a new quest series called "The Kringle Crisis," and we're here with a guide to complete them, thanks to Zynga.

A Holiday Hold-Up
• Craft and Place a Yulefest Party Starter
• Tax 5 Houses
• Have 3 Yulefest Cookies

This quest starts out with some challenging tasks, asking you to earn cookies via the help of friends and a general news post, and asking you to collect even more items to craft the new Yulefest Party Starter. The Party Starter requires five Gumdrops, six Sugar, eight Red Feathers and two Wood Planks to craft, and it takes just five seconds to finish. You can earn the Gumdrops by posting a request on your news feed. When you complete this first quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

As you throw parties, friends that visit will earn you points in the Yulefest, and as you reach certain visit milestones, you'll be eligible for different prizes when the party ends. After 10 visits, but before 20 visits, you'll receive 20 Candy Canes and Shiny Baubles, three Tinsel and a Normal Yulefest Stocking. After 20 visits, you'll receive 45 Candy Canes and Shiny Baubles, six Tinsel, one String of Lights and a Giant Yulefest Stocking.

Automation Attempts
• Place the Arctic Automaton
• Buy and Place an Icy Rock
• Craft 2 Candy Cane Lamp Posts

You'll have the base of the Arctic Automaton available to place for free when starting this quest. As for the Icy Rock, one of these can be purchased from the store for just 1,000 coins. Finally, the Candy Cane Lamp Posts are crafted using five Shiny Baubles, eight Candy Canes, five Copper Trinkets and three pieces of Coal. The Candy Canes and Shiny Baubles are earned by attending other Yulefest Parties and tending items in those active Kingdoms. When you finish this second quest, you'll receive a Mistletoe May Pole, 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

A Youthful Yuletide
• Finish the Arctic Automaton
• Have 5 Bottles of Ink
• Feed 12 Chickens

The Chickens must be fed in your own Kingdom, while the bottles of Ink can be crafted inside a Studio using three Berries and three Pails of Water each. As for the Arctic Automaton, you'll need to collect eight Yellow Feathers, four Bronze Bars, 10 Stone Blocks and 12 Ice Chunks to finish it off. The Bronze Bars are a crafting project in and of themselves, requiring three Silver Ore and four Copper Trinkets each. You can also craft the Stone Blocks yourself or just ask your friends to send them to you. When you complete this quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

Merry Machismo?
• Have 10 Ice Chunks
• Have 5 Bowls of Caramel Popcorn
• Craft a Giant Yulefest Wreath

The Caramel Popcorn can be earned by posting a general requests to your news feed, while the Ice Chunks can be earned by mining Ice Rocks in your Kingdom. Finally, the Giant Yulefest Wreath requires 20 Shiny Baubles, four Strings of Lights, five Berries and four Wood Planks to craft in the Party Pavilion. It takes just five seconds to create. When you finish this quest, you'll earn another 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

A Flurry of Festivities
• Run the Arctic Automaton 1 Time
• Craft 1 Iron Bar
• Craft a Moo-Dolph

The Arctic Automaton requires a "Jack's Frost Elixir" before it can be activated. This can be crafted using items like Ice Cream, Pails of Water and Snow Cones, and each time you activate the Arctic Automaton, you'll have a chance of receiving a variety of rewards, in addition to snow that can be laid on top of the grass in your kingdom. Some of these prizes include a Snowy House, Pine Tree, Willow Tree, pile of Snowballs or Pile of Snow, as seen below.

As for the Moo-Dolph itself, this is a Moose that's been dressed up as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and it requires 12 Shiny Baubles, 16 Candy Canes and more to craft. You'll receive a Snowman Guard decoration, 1,750 coins and 35 XP for completing this particular quest.

A Little Holiday Romance
• Craft a Winter Sleigh
• Craft 1 Yule Log Cake
• Have 3 Fire Burners

The Winter Sleigh requires items like 22 Candy Canes and one String of Lights to complete, while the Yule Log is much more separate (and time consuming). It requires eight Cocoa, three Flaxseed Oil and three Batter to create. It also takes 4.4 hours to cook, unless you boost the building's progress in some way. When you complete this quest, you'll receive yet another bundle of 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

Decorative Developments
• Run Arctic Automaton 3 Times
• Have 5 Mulled Ciders
• Craft Leather Pants

The Mulled Ciders are earned by posting a general news item on your wall for all of your friends to see. Remember, if you play the game on Zynga.com, you can ask strangers as well as friends for help, speeding up your progress. As for the Leather Pants, these are crafted in the Studio using four Mink Oil and four Leather each (the Leather itself must be crafted as well). A single pair of Leather Pants takes 16 hours to craft. For completing this quest, you'll receive 1,750 coins and 35 XP.

The Holiday Hiatus
• Craft Kringle's Cottage
• Harvest 5 Grapes
• Craft Another Yulefest Party Starter

By this point, two days of real time have probably passed in your game, so you can start another party in the same way as you started the first: by crafting a Starter in the Party Pavilion. While there, you can also check out the requirements for Kringle's Cottage, which requires 24 Shiny Baubles, four Strings of Lights, three Mortar and more to prepare. You'll receive - you guessed it - another 1,750 coins and 35 XP for completing this quest.

An Evergreen Ending
• Place Kringle's Cottage
• Visit Kringle's Cottage

This quest is incredibly easy to complete, as you'll simply need to pull Kringle's Cottage (which you crafted in the last quest) out of your inventory and place it in your Kingdom. It can be taxed for 600 coins, and doing that will count for "visiting" Kringle's Cottage. When you complete this final quest in the series, you'll receive 1,750 coins, 35 XP and a Yulefest Clydesdale Horse that currently isn't available through any other method. You'll have eight weeks to finish this entire series of nine quests, so get crackin'.

Play CastleVille on Zynga.com Now >

More CastleVille Coverage from Games.com

• An Illumination Education Quests Guide
• Rafael's Big Proposal Quests Guide
• Phoenix Aviculture Quests Guide

---

Republished with permission from:
Brandy Shaul is an editor at Games.com

My enthusiasm for 2011 puzzle game Pushmo was borderline unprofessional. Also: nearly irrational.

Pushmo was a block-pushing game and, really, the last thing the world needs is a game that doesn't just feature more block-pushing puzzles but is all about them.

But Nintendo did good with Pushmo. I've long said it's the best game on the 3DS. I don't mind that it's download-only (hey, I'm a free-thinking individual!). I don't mind that it doesn't star Mario or Zelda (gasp! Nintendo doing something entirely original… new characters!… clear some space in the next Smash Bros. roster!).

Now comes Crashmo, the sequel to Pushmo. The day I got a download code for this one from Nintendo, I was giddy. Clarification: I was as giddy as I get.

Pushmo had more than 100 puzzles that all feature a fat little guy named Mallo who has to get to the top of structures made of push-able and pull-able blocks. That's it. And it was brilliant, because, when skilled game designers concoct such a simple, clear design, they can do great things. The puzzles were shaped as abstract objects or as more familiar things, like giant Super Mario characters. They got hard and solving them could make you feel like a geometric genius.

Crashmo has more than 100 puzzles that all feature a fat little guy named Mallo, who had to get to top of structures made of push-able and pull-able blocks. The new twist? The blocks can now fall. This may sound like the most boring twist of all time, but it transforms the game so radically that playing Crashmo after playing Pushmo feels like going from playing soccer to basketball. In a very basic way they're the same game, but they play very, very differently.

The new game's puzzles are comprised of stacks of block structures and pulling one out from the other causes the one above it to fall straight down. The physics are bizarre. You can essentially stand a table on one leg in the game. But pull that last leg out and you've either gotten closer to solving things or screwed up big-time.

Crashmo turns out to be way harder than Pushmo. The puzzles in the first game could be vexing, but the worst you'd be doing was the equivalent of opening the wrong drawers in a hundred-drawer dresser. You might pull the wrong blocks and need to reset the puzzle. You'd never just cause the whole thing to collapse. Crashmo is rife with potential disasters. And it gets harder as the developers introduce blocks that float. Stupid cloud blocks.

The designers of Crashmo are merciful, thankfully. Their returning mentor character Papa Blox (great name!) is back to provide tips. New minion Corin will even hop through some training levels to teach the game's more obscure moves. The original game's instant rewind feature is back, letting you undo a bad pull or reckless jump. Improved camera controls enable you to more effectively see all the sides of the puzzle. Plus, you can skip any level and try it later. All of this is useful, because the game becomes a hard chew very early on.

Crashmo, like Pushmo gives players access to a level creator and, if history serves, players will soon be making and sharing amazing puzzles. That will be more welcome this time, because one of Crashmo's few disappointments is how lacking in personality its puzzle levels are. There are few winks and nods in the designs, which are mostly abstract structures and not literal collections. A hidden batch of puzzles called Prototypes has a giant dragon and a floating castle puzzle. Most of Crashmo's puzzles lack that charm. They're just towers and stacks waiting to be solved.

The new game is good and very challenging. It manages to make major differences out of what essentially has been a single gameplay change. I'm not as excited about Crashmo as I was Pushmo. The shock of the new is gone. But the surprise that there's a polished new puzzle game for me to obsess over is a welcome one. If you can stand to push more blocks in a video game, you'd like this, too.

Sneaking into iTunes today while I wasn't looking, Street Fighter X Tekken Gauntlet pits Ryu and Kazuya against the entire mobile roster, 30 seconds at a time.

Built in the same engine as the full $.99 version of Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile (as evidenced by the lack of iPhone 5 widescreen support), Gauntlet is a "taste" of the mobile fighter. It's basically a 30 second survival mode, challenging players to take out as many opponents as possible while completing goals to replenish their vitality.

This would be a nifty little game if there were any means of comparing your scores to other players. Instead it's just an odd little self-contained game, barely more than a demo. What an odd thing for Capcom to release.

But hey, it's free! We like free, right?

Street Fighter X Tekken Gauntlet [iTunes]

On November 30, 1998, a little-known company called BioWare released a strangely-titled game named Baldur's Gate for personal computers. It was critically and commercially acclaimed, an excellent RPG with a gigantic world, interesting characters, and a ton of little details to discover and enjoy.

Fourteen years later, Baldur's Gate is back. Today marks the release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, a touched-up port of the iconic RPG with some new characters, features, and enhancements. But what's inside? Is it worth revisiting, or playing for the first time today if you missed it in the past? You undoubtedly have questions. No problem. We're here to help.

What is a "Baldur's Gate"?

Baldur's Gate is the name of a city that you can find in a role-playing game called Baldur's Gate. Fitting, right? The game is based on the world of Dungeons & Dragons, meaning you'll find priests, half-elves, THAC0, and all the other quirky features and stats that make D&D what it is. You roll your own character under D&D rules and restrictions, then take him or her into the world for questing and adventuring.

It's hard to sum up all the charm and wonder of Baldur's Gate in one or two sentences, but at its core, this is a giant role-playing game with a huge, sprawling world. There's a main storyline to follow, but there are also tons and tons of sidequests: you can go help a crazy berserker rescue the love of his life from a troll fortress; you can save an apprentice wizard who has accidentally transformed himself into a chicken; you can search for treasure in the undead ruins near a hobbit village; and much, much more.

Oh, like Skyrim!

Well... yeah! Kind of. Instead of giving you a first-person perspective, Baldur's Gate is isometric, which means you get a top-down view of the world. You move your characters by selecting them and clicking where you want them to go, which doesn't have quite the same feel as the direct control of a game like Skyrim. Some other aspects feel rather different, but if you like the exploring and role-playing of a game like Skyrim, you'll probably like this game too.

Also, Baldur's Gate has party members.

Party... members?

You can recruit up to five allies (for a total party of six) to follow you around, do your bidding, and fight for you.

Fun part is, all of the characters in Baldur's Gate have their own goals, personalities, and ambitions. If you recruit someone to help figure out why there's an iron shortage, but you don't seem to be looking into the iron shortage, that someone might get mad and decide to leave you forever. You also have to worry about balance: if you team up with a Lawful Good paladin and a Chaotic Evil sorcerer, they might not get along too well. They might get into a fight and force you to pick a side. Loser dies.

That does sound kind of awesome. So what's the story?

Your main character is an orphan (yeah, yeah, I know) raised by a dude named Gorion in a quiet, studious city called Candlekeep. One day, Gorion is all like "yo we've gotta get the hell out of dodge." So you're like "okay." Then you run into a terrifying guy named Sarevok. And then... well, bad stuff happens. You have to piece together a series of mysteries from there. And kill lots of people.

How do you kill people?

Combat in Baldur's Gate is really interesting: it's sort of a mixture of real-time and turn-based battling. Everything happens at once, but you can pause combat at any time to give orders to your party. So you can pause to have your characters gulp down healing potions, cast spells, move around the map, and figure out optimal strategies for taking out your opponents.

It can get rather difficult, particularly at the beginning of the game when you're rather low leveled, but you can always change the difficulty settings, and there are always ways to upgrade your party's equipment and abilities.

OK, OK, this does sound pretty cool, but what if I already knew all this? What if I've already played Baldur's Gate? What's different about the Enhanced Edition?

Lots of things. Let's make a list:

• The first thing you'll notice is that Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition can support a high-definition display. Everything is crisper and cleaner, and you can even zoom in and out on the main screen (not possible before). The art assets, however, have not been changed, so they don't look too great when you zoom in closely.
• This version of Baldur's Gate also takes a great deal from Baldur's Gate II, the 2000 sequel and by most accounts one of the best games of all time. Baldur's Gate II added a number of extra classes and sub-classes, some new features (like dual-wielding), and some other random interface improvements. Those are all implemented here.
• Bug fixes! The game's creative director Trent Oster says they've zapped some 400 bugs while porting over the game.
• This version of the game comes with Baldur's Gate's expansion, Tales of the Sword Coast.
• It also comes with plenty of new stuff. First of all there's a new area called The Black Pits, a set of combat challenges with a customizable cast of characters.
• There are also a few new characters: Rasaad yn Bashir, a monk (and his new area, the Cloud Peaks); Neera, a wild mage (also comes with her own new area); and Dorn Il-Khan, a half-orc Blackguard.
• More to come, Oster has promised, especially if this one does well. There may be DLC in the future.

So it's out for PC today. Wasn't it supposed to come to iPad? Or Mac? Or Android?

It was. All of those versions have been delayed: the iOS version had a game-stopping bug, and should be out next week, according to Oster. The OSX version is also still waiting on Apple's approval, and the Android version should be out by Christmas.

The PC/Mac versions are $20. The mobile versions will be $10, but much of the extra content will not be included; you'll have to buy it separately as DLC.

When the different versions do all come out, you'll be able to play cross-platform multiplayer.

I remember playing Baldur's Gate like ten years ago. Has it aged well?

It's hard to tell. If you're used to the fast-paced, actiony gameplay of today's Western RPGs—games like Mass Effect, Skyrim, and even Dragon Age—you might have a tough time adjusting to the more sluggish tempo of a game like Baldur's Gate. Characters move very slowly. It takes some getting used to.

But the writing is fantastic, the world is full of interesting (and funny!) little details to uncover, and the interface enhancements definitely help make it more accessible than it was a decade and a half ago.

Wait a minute. I remember playing Baldur's Gate with some crazy mods a few years ago that did similar things. Is there anything you can do here that you can't do with mods?

Probably not. The new content designed by the folks behind Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will be exclusive to this game, but a lot of the interface changes and BG2 enhancements can be patched into a standard version of Baldur's Gate with a number of free mods.

On the flip side, this may very well be the definitive version of Baldur's Gate. You don't have to worry about messing around with system files and inadvertently causing bugs in your game, and the folks behind BG: EE promise patches and future content that will make the game better. Also: even though it's not out yet, this may be the only (non-jailbreaking) way to play Baldur's Gate on your iPad or Android tablet. Look forward to more Kotaku coverage of the iPad version of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition when it's out.

A nonsensical name. Annoying music. So-so art style. Gluddle has all of these. So why write about it? Because this iOS game also sports rock-solid, highly addictive gameplay.

Gluddle plays sort of like a pinball board that you can build yourself. The object of Creative Heroes' physics-driven puzzler is to destroy the robots of the Supervision, who keep ominous watch over the globular title characters.

The action starts off simply, with the player aiming and launching the Gluddles at directly at the Supervision bots. But soon, you'll have to freeze Gluddles in place for subsequent ones to bounce off, break up obstacles and use wormholes to knock the Supervision out.

While Gluddle uses some of the familiar launch-and-destroy mechanics of games like Angry Birds, it evolves them in fiendish ways. The bull's-eye-festooned Supervision bots can freeze your Gluddles in place before you do. Since you can't remove these Gluddles like the ones you freeze in place yourself, they become permanent obstacles when that happens.

It's this changeability that makes Gluddle so hard to put down. You can engineer your own way to an elegant solution to each level or clutter the screen with Gluddles to create crazy ricochets. While the game could use a bit more presentational charm, the gore of the experience is clever and well-realized.

Gluddle [$0.99; Apple App Store]