Those of us who got Wii U systems last November were supposed to reach an oasis today in our crawl through the machine's oh-so-typical year-one software desert. We were supposed to be playing the sidescroller Rayman: Legends right now.

We're not. The game was recently, painfully delayed to the fall.

If it reduces the sting at all, folks, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot at least told me that the game is still being worked on. He says it's not, as some feared, sitting somewhere entirely finished and just waiting for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions to be made. "The Wii U the team is working hard on the Wii U [version] to make sure it continues to improve, so it can become one of the best Wii U games," he told me at last Wednesday's PlayStation 4 kick-off event, after we chatted about Sony's new console. "We hope it can be one of the top games Ubisoft creates."

The game's recent delay infuriated Wii U fans who wanted what they hoped would be a very good game during an otherwise very slow time for the new console. Many fans assumed the game was done and Ubisoft hasn't tried very hard to counter that impression. The idea that a possibly-finished game might be held back made things worse, sparking online protests and even an in-person one at the game's Ubisoft studio in France. The publisher eventually extended an olive branch, offering a free online version of the game—its "challenge" mode—for Wii U owners for release this April. "I think the free version will just be amazing," Guillemot told me, saying it will have "very social gameplay that I think people will love."

It's still not clear what triggered the delay, and Guillemot didn't clearly state to me that the game couldn't have come out for Wii U right now. Rather, he made it sound like, regardless of the reason for delay, that the game would improve.

"What's very important to consider is that," he said, "when a team has more time, they are able to continue to improve the quality of the game. When we saw we had more time, we saw all of the possibilities. Some of the possibilities are the social features that we are seeing today, but also new bosses, new possibilities that will take the game to a level that people will love." Why he referenced social features shown "today"—the day of the Sony press conference—for the PS4, when we were ostensibly discussing a Wii U game, is unclear to me. The sense I got was that he was referring to the basic idea of making games more connected, something Ubisoft did superbly with their Wii U launch game ZombiU—not that he was alluding to a possible PS4 version of Legends.

I think some Wii U fans might prefer to have even a half-decent version of Legends now instead of nothing. Year one of owning a new console... it ain't a picnic.

E3 is never a time for social calls. It's nonstop work. Last June, the only developer I met with outside the walls of the L.A. Convention Center was over drinks with Zen Studios' U.S. staff at the J.W. Marriott.

They'd built a great name for themselves with Pinball FX2, and their profile shot through the roof in 2011 with Marvel's license on their series of virtual pinball tables. "Where do you go from here? What's coming up next?" I asked.

"We have some ideas, and some big things we can't talk about right now," was the reply, with a knowing glance.

"Oh, shit," I said, "You got Star Wars."

I've long known this was an ambition for Neil Sorens, Zen's creative director, and all of the Zen team, here and in Hungary—indeed, there are 10 tables coming, and everyone on the development staff was given a crack at one. The fruits of that labor began releasing today, with three tables for Zen's platform on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, as well as for Android and iOS mobile devices.

Star Wars Pinball shrewdly spreads out its appeal—there's The Empire Strikes Back for 40-year-old fogeys like me, The Clone Wars for younger fans, and Boba Fett, an intriguing themed table that bridges both audiences.

After playing this set for a week, I can sense that their difficulty has a similar spread. Clone Wars was the easiest and highest-scoring table for me; Boba Fett will require the most accuracy to reach eye-popping points totals. Touching both is Empire Strikes Back. Though it regularly rewards a player with big eight-figure numbers, the main objective—to replay what is, basically, the entire movie, through a series of timed pinball missions—is tougher than anything I've faced in Zen Pinball's 41 tables.

Empire gives you a series of five "scenes" which come in the form of missions—a set of tasks to complete, usually hitting a target or a ramp. Triggering the scene/mission is simple enough—there's a three-paneled console at the center of the table, and lighting up all of its sides opens a trap door that, after rolling a ball into the trap, allows you to select a scene-mission for play, in or out of order. For beginners, I recommend Scene 3, the Asteroid Field, as it's the easiest and most points-rich.

Still, hopping the ball three times over a ramp to the back reaches of the table is only the beginning. Fortunately, completing any task (hitting a ramp or a target) usually delivers a million-point-bonus. But to truly drag out the toys, like an animated AT-AT in one of the Hoth sequences, requires a lot of persistence. Yes, there's a checkpoint mechanism, so if you finish one stage of a scene, then lose a ball, you can pick up from where you left off later. But the time given to complete any of these sequences is preciously short and tolerates one, maybe two mistakes at the most. Hitting the wrong ramp ends in an agonizing, time-sucking loss.

As the missions go further, accuracy becomes a higher priority, as does transferring the ball from one flipper to the other. Boba Fett places the highest priority on this, with its swooping ramps (symbolizing jetpack flight) that often end up returning the ball to the side you wanted to avoid. Missions in Boba Fett aren't cinematic—they're cash-on-the-barrelhead rewards you can unlock after lighting the EMPIRE or HUTTS lane. Each mission brings out Darth or Jabba to instruct you (or reprimand you, if you failed the past try). Even though EMPIRE was one more letter, I found it easier to trigger. Once a bounty is acquired, you have to hit all of the board's lanes (there are seven) to win its jackpot. The good news is, hitting any lane awards 1 million points.

So even if seeing missions through to the end is very difficult, Star Wars Pinball does offers a means of strategically failing them in order to plunder the instances for points (Scene 3 in Empire is useful, plus anything in Fett.) In The Clone Wars, I advise taking the mission "The Monster" once you unlock the Council (by hitting two ramps a total of eight times.) Hitting Maul's hover-thing returns a million each time you strike it and is much easier than "Attack on Kamino."

There is still a lot on the board that I've yet to discover, or have only seen once or a few times. (I made the Slave 1 fly into Boba Fett only once). There's an instance in Empire that sends you into a wild first-person combat mode where you block laser stings from a training drone (never mind that's from Episode IV, it's still rad). Boba Fett's skillshot feels arbitrarily awarded but it brings up a nice minigame on the main display. To reach the epic Luke vs. Vader showdown will take extraordinary persistence and accuracy. These tables are marketed for everyone, but very, very few, I think, will watch all of The Empire Strikes Back on its dot matrix board.

That's how I recall the great movie adaptations on pinball machines—adaptations which precede arcade or console games. There was always something lurking deep in the game, and there was always some kid or, more likely, the older brother of some kid, who could make the big secret come to life. It'll cost $10, not a thousand quarters, to make everything happen, but the challenge is still pizza-parlor authentic.

I was able to get myself past 25 million on Clone and Empire after getting the series on Thursday, and hit 13 million on Fett. There's a lot more to discover.

But if you ask me what I think of Zen's effort so far, I'm brought back to my first thought: Oh shit. They got Star Wars.

Sometimes the pain just hurts so good. Etrian Odyssey IV, I love to hate you.

The fourth game in the Etrian Odyssey series is much like all of the rest: intricate, challenging, and unabashedly hardcore. It hits you really hard, but that's okay, because you know you love it.

I've spent the weekend with Etrian Odyssey IV, which comes out today for 3DS, and although I haven't gotten quite far enough in Atlus's new dungeon crawler to write a full review—and probably won't for a while—I'm really digging it so far.

For the uninitiated: Etrian Odyssey IV is a first-person role-playing game not unlike Wizardry or the old Might & Magic games. You start out in a big town, create a party of five people, and head into the world to explore dungeons, fight monsters in grueling rounds of turn-based combat, collect treasure, and adventure your ass off.

Outside of the standard RPG fare—the lovely music, the whimsical translation, the never-ending vault of loot—EOIV has two major hooks that are keeping me in love. The first is the map system. As you explore dungeons, you get to play cartographer on the bottom screen of your 3DS, drawing lines and placing icons in order to chart your progress and try to organize some of the chaos that confronts you every time you enter a new dungeon.

It's like playing with graphing paper, or gradually piecing together a very large puzzle. You can draw lines and place colors and use special icons, which only signify what you want them to signify. It's addictive in the way that filling out a connect-the-dot puzzle is addictive. An outsider might look at the game and say something like, "Why the hell would I want to fill in a map? Shouldn't the game be doing that for me?" But! Believe it or not, the monotonous act of filling in lines and squares actually makes dungeon exploring feel less monotonous than it might if you were relying on an auto-mapper. It's a lovely paradox.

Etrian Odyssey IV's second major hook is that it's really, really hard. When you play it, you will die. Your characters will be one-shotted and you will want to throw your 3DS against a wall. (Do not throw your 3DS against a wall.)

To some this might sound unappetizing, but what I love about Etrian Odyssey IV's difficulty is that it's all about resource management. Your spells and items are limited, and unlike most RPGs, EOIV doesn't give you any easy ways to restore magic points or revive your characters. This is not Final Fantasy. Phoenix Downs are not cheap and plentiful here. You have to be smart to keep fighting.

So yes, like its predecessors, Etrian Odyssey IV has already turned into that game—the punishing, hardcore portable RPG that I just can't seem to stop playing. I sure do love to hate it.

"Nanotechnology offers unprecedented possibilities for progress—defeating poverty, starvation, and disease, opening up outer space, and expanding human capacities. But it also brings unprecedented risks—the specter of devastating wars fought with far more powerful weapons of mass destruction." - Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

When you step into one of the games in the Crysis series, you step into something called a "Nanosuit." It makes you a stronger, better soldier.

The Nanosuit is supposedly made up of a material called CryFibril, also referred in the game as Nanoweave or Nanofiber. CryFibril is the single most important component of the suit, as it is the medium for the various Nanosuit functions. In Crysis 2, the CryFibril got a major overhaul, making the Nanosuit lighter, stronger and more energy efficient.

Someone at Crytek must have been doing their homework because CryFibril looks suspiciously like a recent real-world breakthrough in nanomaterial technology.

Rise of the digital battlefield—war v2.0

Medical and military scientists alike claim that nanotechnology will transform the future as we know it. With the global proliferation of nanoscale technologies, from the research bench to the consumer market, it is both inevitable and fast-approaching. The question remains though, what will the future landscape look like? The answer really depends on who you ask.

My previous article about nanotechnology in video games—specifically, the Metal Gear series—took a glimpse at how nanotechnology could completely revolutionize the future of warfare. Using some not-so-far-fetched science, soldiers and machines can be integrated into a massive command-and-control network with the help of computers, epidermal electronic sensors and wireless communication systems. The central combat environment would provide detailed battlefield information and control to commanders in real time, in what Colin Milburn (nano culture researcher), dubbed the "Digital Battlefield". Or maybe more appropriately: War—the video game.

"Taking inspiration from the Future Warrior 2020 program, we developed the Nano Fibre Suit [a.k.a Nanosuit) that can enhance strength, speed and armour levels. The player can max the speed and dash across an open field, change to the strength setting and silently punch out a sentry." - Bernd Diemer, Senior Game Designer, Crytek 2006

Does the suit make the man, or does the man make the suit?

Crysis 3 is the newest installment in the Crysis series. For the unfamiliar, Crysis 3 is set in the near future (2047ish) and follows the adventures of Alcatraz Prophet, a soldier equipped with a nanotechnology-inspired battle suit, aptly named the Nanosuit. Prophet must protect the human race from complete extension from the Charybdis, a race of technologically-advanced aliens that are dead-set on our destruction. The Nanosuit comes fully-fitted with three primary combat modes: Armour, Power and Stealth. These modes allow Prophet to battle the Charybdis with superhuman abilities. Let's take a peek behind the curtain and delve into the science of the CryNet Nanosuit.

Coincidence? I think not—CryFibril on the left and nanoscale carbon (graphene) on the right

CryFibril—fabric of the future or is it already here?

Graphene (pictured above) is a one-atom thick sheet of carbon arranged in a repeating hexane pattern that has some really amazing mechanical properties. It might not look like much, but the discovery of graphene in 2004 was a big deal. In fact, the researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize just 6 years later, which is almost unheard of. So what's so special about this graphene stuff anyways?

Well in short, graphene is one the strongest materials ever manufactured. It has a breaking strength 100 times greater than steel and weighs thousands of times less (10,194 times less to be exact). Graphene can be rolled up into tubes, called carbon nanotubes, which are even stronger than graphene sheets. Carbon nanotubes can then be spun together and woven into fibers which are much more flexible and useful as engineering materials, making them the ideal fabric for the Nanosuit. If you can believe it, carbon nanotubes are even harder than diamond. So it comes as no surprise that research is already underway towards developing carbon nanotube composite body armour for police and military applications as well as building an elevator to space, just to name a few ideas.

Graphene can be rolled up into a tube just like a sheet of paper and spun into super strong carbon nanofibers, the perfect material for an armoured Nanosuit.

"From shape-shifting armour to fabric that can turn away microbes, as well as bullets to new power sources, the defense industries are launching major initiatives and planning for Nanotechnology. The basic research in Nanotechnology conducted at these centers will provide the foundation upon which real world applications can be built." - Kevin G. Coleman, Senior Fellow, Technolytics Institute

Maximum Armour

In a pinch, Prophet can divert power to the CryFibril Nano suit armour to temporarily increase protection from incoming high-speed objects, blunt trauma and energy blasts. This process, called Armour Mode, supposedly tightens up the suit's outer weave, which decreases the suit's power upon impact, rather than valuable health.

Interestingly, there is a real world nanomaterial counterpart currently under development called D30 gel. This protective nanogel is a dilatant non-Newtonian fluid, which is a very fancy way of saying it is flexible when moving slowly, but rigidifies upon impact, before quickly returning to its flexible state again. These types of materials behave very strangely. Check it out on YouTube, you won't regret it. Studies have down that D30 gel can absorb much of the energy from a shock or impact, greatly reducing the damage to the wearer. It is already in use in protective sports equipment and is coming soon to a battlefield near you.

Shock-absorbing nanogel (D30), real life Maximum Armour

Maximum Power

When Prophet needs to quickly sprint across the battlefield, leap to cover on top of a Pinger or toss a wrecked car at a pesky group of Ceph, Power Mode is the way to go. Power Mode uses up Nanosuit energy for as long as it is active and grants the player superhuman strength.

How can we rationalize this with some real world science? Well, we could talk about a powered exoskeleton like the Raytheon XOS. This would fit the bill in terms of Power Mode functionally but it is hardly a nanoscale technology. No, we need to go smaller, much smaller.

An international team of researchers lead by Ray Baughman at the University of Texas have come up with a nano-sized alternative. They have developed an artificial nano fiber muscle. These nano fibers are made up of ropes of carbon nanotubes which are twisted together into thicker yarns and set into paraffin wax.

The bundles of nano fibers can contract rapidly when exposed to heat or electricity, up to 200 times stronger than human muscle. The manufacturing process will have to be improved to weave larger fabrics, like our trusty Nanosuit, but the basic premise checks out.

Ropes of carbon nanotubes can be spun into thicker yarns forming high strength artificial muscles.

"Military camouflage outfits that blend with a variety of environments without needing an outside power source—blue, say, when at sea, and then brown in a desert environment—is where this work could eventually lead." - George Bachand, Team Leader, Sandia National Laboratories

Cloaking

Is there an annoying Ceph patrol up ahead guarding the objective? Need to sneak by a sentry and avoid being detected? No problem. Disappear from sight with Stealth Mode. This Nanosuit ability also drains power but makes the wearer invisible. The suit's surface can dynamically scan the surrounding area and modify its skin colour to match in real time. This is the principle behind active camouflage. Animals like the octopus, chameleon and sea horse have already figured it out. Humans, on the other hand, are still working on it.

One of the first experimental active camouflage prototypes came out of the lab of Susumu Tachi from University of Tokyo in 2003. They developed a camouflage system in which a video camera captures the background behind an object and displays it on a cloth in front using an external projector. It didn't really work very well, but it inspired others to try and make their own cloaking machines. There are several new approaches currently under development using metamaterials which can actually bend light around an object. This technology only works for extremely small objects, so what about our Nanosuit?

The secret behind Susumu Tachi's active camouflage prototype

Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories (a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin) have been working on a dramatically different strategy since 2009. The principle is to fabricate a material with differently-coloured lights attached to motors, which are embedded at the surface. These lights can be rotated and turned on and off dynamically to match the colour of the surroundings. Sounds pretty straightforward right? Well it is, until you scale it down to the molecular level.

Their motors are not electric; they are protein motors which run on tiny microtube rails. Their lights don't have bulbs. They are made up of quantum dot nano crystals. Quantum dots are highly fluorescent nanoscale metal semiconductors which can absorb and emit light of different wavelengths (colours). They are commonly used in nanomedicine as imaging and diagnostic tools due to their small size and favourable optical properties.

Now imagine millions of quantum dots that are differently coloured (red, green, blue) all moving around in controlled patterns at the surface of the Nanosuit. By controlling the intensity and position of these quantum dots, and with the proper video input to capture the surrounding environment, you could get very energy-efficient cloaking. While this technology is clearly in the early stages of development, it is an interesting possibility and one to consider for the Nanosuit.

"Video game traditions here shape the way that military nanoscience presents itself to the public... striving for a digital future where wars are rebootable and soldier's lives are replayable, thanks to the struggles of intrepid researches." - Colin Milburn, Nanoculture Researcher, Everyday Nanowars: Video Games and the Crisis of the Digital Battlefield

It is a wild, wild world down at the nanoscale, and scientists are just beginning to scratch the surface. Whether in our socks and sunscreen, or on the dystopian battlefields of the future, it won't be long before products made with nano technology are an inescapable part of our everyday life. I tip my hat at Crytek for coming up with an extremely cool (and more-or-less plausible) science-inspired Nanosuit.

No offence to Alcatraz, I think it is pretty clear that in this case, the suit makes the man.

Kevin Neibert is nanotechnology researcher at McGill University and Science Media Consultant at Thwacke! Consulting. Follow him  @ThwackeMontreal and like us on Facebook.

How Nanotechnology is Portrayed in Video Games – The Metal Gear Solid Saga

"The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; More »

---

The best thing about Nvidia's TegraZone, where Android and Windows RT device owners can purchase and play the latest Tegra-fueled games, is that it's not very crowded. The Tegra 3 chip is lovely and does a wonderful job of powering amped mobile titles, but developers haven't exactly flocked to the platform. Perhaps that's changing with the upcoming Tegra 4. Today Nvidia unveiled five new-ish games slated to take advantage of its powerful new system-on-a-chip.

I say new-ish, because some of these games you might have played before in non-Tegra 4 optimized form. Games like RU Golf from Nutgee, which has been sitting about the TegraZone for the past several months, tempting players with shiny graphics and then jumping them with online-only gameplay. Or Burn Zombie Burn, a downloadable PlayStation 3 and PC title making its mobile debut on Tegra 4.

Rounding out the fresh five are a trio of newer titles. N3V Games' Dead on Arrival 2 looks great if you're a fan of backgrounds without much to them. The action-packed Codex: The Warrior from Devclan uses the Tegra 4 to produce real-time dynamic shadows and HDR lighting. Finally there's Carie: Blood Mansion from NeoWiz, a creepy shooter that'll pack enhanced effects and an exclusive level on Tegra 4.

With the Project Shield handheld coming this spring and a flood of Tegra 4-powered smartphones and tablets waiting in the wings, it's nice to get an idea of what near-console-quality games mobile gamers will have at their disposal. Most of them will still just play Angry Birds, but it's good to have options.

Read more over at Nvidia's blog.

If you're here in the Panel Discussion programming block, you might be a lapsed comics reader, trying to find a way back to the JLA Satellite. Or you might someone killing time until you pick up your weekly Wednesday pull list. Or maybe you've said goodbye to dozens of longboxes to embrace the promise of digital comics. Whichever it is, you're still interested in the good stuff.

Welcome, then, to the Panel Discussion Dozen Sextet, where I pick out just-released or out-soon comics that I think are worth paying attention to. Ready? Then, let's meet the sequential art that'll be draining your wallet this week. Be sure to chime in with the books you'll be picking up or that you think everybody should be reading in the comments.

---

The Massive #9
The reason this comic works is that it's built on the premise of ideals and what happens when they're actually tested. The members of the seafaring, eco-activist organization Ninth Wave have been trying doing to survive in a ravaged world without succumbing to the temptations that have captured others. But this issue looks to be the one where their morals and loyalty get pushed to the breaking point. Brian Wood's writing pulls the reader into the shoes of his characters and makes you ask yourself what you would do.

---

Batman Incorporated #8
This week's big comics news revolves around the events in this issue, which aren't exactly a secret based on that cover. As someone who's loved Damian and the concept of Robin overall, I'm sad to see this happen. As someone who's been reading comics for more than 30 years, I don't believe for a second that this will stick. We'll see what kind of mileage Grant Morrison gets out of this latest plot development.

---

Borderlands Origins #2
With all the shooting and looting going on in Gearbox's hit franchise, there's not a whole lot of time for backstory. That's where the comics from publisher IDW come in. This new issue tells readers about Lilith, the lethal Siren who rolls with the second crew of Vault Hunters from Borderlands 2. Turns out she's been kicking ass long before Handsome Jack showed his weird-looking face.

---

Five Weapons #1
Given how good their output has been lately, it's gotten to the point that I'll take a chance on any first issue from Image Comics. This series—written by the sharply funny Jimmie Robinson—looks like it'll be a good reversal of the "gifted children" concept that's so popular in genre fiction:

13-year-old Tyler finds himself in a specialized school where assassins send their kids for education and training in one of the five deadly weapons. Tyler doesn't have a weapon or any fighting skills, but he still plans to graduate by beating every weapon master in the school because he has a powerful ability that nobody can match: his razor-sharp mind! JIMMIE ROBINSON twists the insanity of BOMB QUEEN in a fun new series that will keep you guessing to the end.

---

Hawkeye #8
Clint Barton is one of those guys who digs dangerous women. He's dated the Black Widow, been married to Mockingbird and is currently fraternizing with fellow Avenger Spider-Woman. So, you know, the young lady on the cover of this series' latest issue is going to be trouble. But you also know that said trouble is going to be another stylish, punchy read from writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja. Buckle up.

---

Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1
Marvel's superpowered space-team is set to be the focus of the publisher's next big-budget movie. So this series by superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis and Steve McNiven will be probably worth watching for the tone of what winds up on the silver screen. The team assembled here is a motley crew that doesn't have the same institutional history of the Avengers so it'll be great to see how their personalities interact.

I heard from many of you after this lip-curling, anti-Atlantean tract last week, in which I explained my soft bigotry of no expectations of Aquaman. Your complaints were printed out, read and thrown into my fireplace to warm my home. Then I took a phone call. From the voice of Aquaman.

"This is Jens Andersen," said Jens Andersen, whom I better know as the creative director for DC Universe Online. But he also portrayed Aquaman in that character's appearances in the game—yeah, I guess because he's such a big-time hero they couldn't let a real voice actor handle the job.

"Oh, is this about that Aquaman thing?" I said. "Do you have a problem with me having a problem with him?"

"I got two problems," Jens said, pushing up his rhetorical sleeves. "My biggest problem is that the Sub-Mariner, the guy you stack up as cooler than Aquaman, is the most ironic choice to support any of your arguments. You want to pick on Aquaman's costume? Well, Namor has no pants..."

A salient point.

"He's worse than shorty-pants Robin," Jens continued, evidently willing to sacrifice Burt Ward to make a point. "He's wearing scaly underpants. How can you possibly say Namor is any cooler than Aquaman when he's walking around in steely underwear?"

Look, Namor's costume choice may be less than ideal—and this godawful Deney Terrio revision is objectively worse than anything Aquaman's ever worn, granted. But that ignores the main thrust of my argument. At least Namor has the power of flight, acknowledging the narrative limitation presented by being supreme over the underwater world where, last I checked, there were very few banks for a superbaddie to rob.

"I look upon that as a cop out," Jens sneered. "They [Marvel] didn't want to deal with the limitations of Namor as a sea character, so they put these dainty little wings on his feet and, oh, now he can fly, and that's what really makes him interesting?

"The cooler character, the one who has to deal with the constraints of not being a flier—of actually dealing with the responsibilities of an undersea king, is Aquaman," said Jens, who's giving a talk at GDC on storytelling in a superhero universe, as it is.

"And here's another litmus test for who's cooler. Do a search of Namor cosplay and Aquaman cosplay. You see guys going to Comic-Con like this all the time, I guarantee, they turn away from Namor, and not from Aquaman."

Another point for Jens—he's been to plenty of cons. But I must interject. I'm a Legendary subscriber to his game, and perusing its skills, and power sets, I find nothing that could remotely create an homage to Aquaman. This is a game that bent over backward, six months after release, to bring hard light powers to thousands of would-be Lanterns and Sinestros. But when I look through the iconic powers available to any character, I see a pheromone bloom, but I don't see breathing water or talking to fish.

"It's control sea life," Jens said, teeth gritting. "He doesn't talk to fish! They're not people! They don't have enough of a brain to talk! They're an extension of his will!"

Talk, control, squid, calamari, whatever you call it, it ain't there. If Aquaman is so damned important, how come he isn't templatized in character creation? You can quik-create an homage to Green Arrow if you want. Where's your champion of Atlantis?

"I had to fight tooth and nail just to get him into the game," Jens says, of Aquaman,"to give him his just desserts. And when I got him in, I put him in at the end of the game, as high level content."

I've played the instance as a hero—it's level 27. (The level cap is 30). Circe is impersonating Queen Mera, and has Aquaman under her spell. It is a tough ride. I could not solo it.

"I wanted players to feel like they've almost come to the Justice League level of power and then, pow, you have to take on Aquaman, which canonizes him as a Justice League-level powerful character," Jens exulted. "I made it so that he just wipes the floor with you [Editor's note: he does] and all you're able to do is break the spell over him. Then he switches sides and you defeat Circe.

"Players in DC Universe never get to defeat Aquaman at launch," Jens continued. "It was definitely an F U to Aquaman haters out there. No one was able to take a picture of themselves teabagging Aquaman, or whatever."

What's more, in the Tides of War seasonal event (it comes out in summers), which presents Aquaman in a boss fight, it takes four players, minimum, to take him down. Superman and Batman are repeatedly beatable in solo instances. "I definitely had an agenda with Aquaman in a boss fight," Jens laughed. "He's just that bad ass."

Jens is my generation (I'm 39) and likewise grew up in the era of Super Friends, which some would call a hideous libel of Aquaman (and, by extension, his people). I considered it an evenhanded depiction of his powers relative to other superheroic archetypes, and think all of his ensemble appearances since then—such as in the forthcoming Injustice: Gods Among Us—are revisionist apologies for such emasculating treatment. DC Universe Online would seem to support that.

But it's not PR to Jens. It's personal. Growing up, he wasn't much of a swimmer. ("I wasn't much of an athlete," he said. "I was too busy reading comic books.") He has blond hair. Name the first super hero with blond hair—not covered by a mask, hat or a helmet—who comes to mind.

It's Aquaman.

"All the fans' derision of him is reflected in the comics under Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis," Jens said. "He's an outcast, and he's an outcast because he has blond hair. It's a superficial reason why they hate his guts. It's a superficial reason why you hate his guts.

"He's a compelling and interesting character," Jens said. "He's just trying to find a place for himself in the world."

Chastened, even a little touched, I realized I was wrong. "Oh, all the crap you said you bought instead of buying Aquaman, everything you mentioned was Marvel," Jens said. "You do realize they're separate universes, right?"

Yes, well, when I was bicycle-riding age, the only comic seller within range was a Fast Fare that carried, for some reason, Marvel titles only. When I started going to high school, there was a drugstore nearby that carried DC, so I got into Batman and Jackson Guice's Flash then.

"Then you've got a problem of nature versus nurture!" Jens said. "You don't hate Aquaman! You just never knew him."

"Alright, Jens," I said. "I'll create an Aqua-character in your game tonight. Now, how do you suggest I do that?"

Hashing it out, we figured on a hero, with magic (Wonder Woman) as his mentor. "Brawling or a staff as his combat style," Jens said, with finding a trident appearance weapon later as a priority. "I'd go with mental, as that represents most of Aquaman's power, and his role as a controller."

"Not nature?" I said.

"Well, yeah, I guess you could imagine that's seaweed coming out of the ground," he said. "A kelp blast."

What about movement? There's no swimming in DCUO.

"I'd give him acrobatics. But you could cop out like your Namor buddy," Jens said, "and give him flight."

Oh man. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is coming out in two weeks.

The sequel to 2010's Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm promises to continue the story of marine Jim Raynor, alien-human-crazy beast Sarah Kerrigan, and all of the other fascinating characters that inhabit the StarCraft universe.

Blizzard—the folks behind StarCraft—have always been quite good at making cinematic trailers for their games, and this new one is no exception. Check it out above.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm comes out March 12 for PC and Mac.

Jack Kirby earned his nickname. The man known as the King of Comics drew incredibly fast, incredibly well and with incredible imagination. He had a hand in creating many of Marvel Comics' most well-loved characters—including Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, and others—did ground-brealing work at DC Comics and also drew comics in the romance, Western and monster genres, too. And because Kirby helped draw concepts for the fictional movie that helped free American diplomats 1980, he makes a cameo appearance in Oscar-wining movie Argo, too.

Kings inspire devotion. And collector Vincent Iadevaia is super-devoted to Kirby. He's been tracking down and buying comics with covers by the master artist for the last few years. After coming across his Tumblr, I decided to ask Iadevaia about his love for one of comics' great masters.

---

Kotaku: Do you know the actual number of covers Jack Kirby illustrated?

From 1938 up until his death in 1994, Kirby produced at least 1526 comic book covers. The Jack Kirby Checklist is the most complete list I've come across and I don't leave home without it! It does an amazing job of documenting Kirby's career in detail, including small details like the amount of pages he drew in a particular issue.

Kotaku: Are you going for EVERYTHING everything that Kirby drew a cover for, including the romance and western material? Or are you just sticking to superhero stuff?

My original goal was to collect Jack Kirby's run on The Fantastic Four, issues #1-101, but it's turned into collecting everything. When I'm digging through boxes of vintage books at my local comic book store, it's really tough to put down anything Kirby created. There's some sort of cosmic energy in his work that always attracts me. Recently I've become really interested in his early work at Timely Comics where he created Captain America with partner Joe Simon, but those books aren't exactly affordable.

Kotaku: How do you feel about the fact that Kirby's creative legacy barely gets acknowledged by the massive Marvel Entertainment machine now?

It's really sad to watch Marvel Comics make billions off of Jack Kirby's creations without giving him and his estate any credit or royalties. Among many others, Kirby created Thor, The X-Men, Iron Man, and The Fantastic Four. I can't imagine a Marvel Comics without him and the publisher should be be embarrassed of how they treated Kirby.

Kotaku: If you had to pick an interior page sequence by Kirby to spend imaginary money on, which one would it be? Why this particular one above all others?

This was a tough decision. I would pick this interior page from Fantastic Four #51. The use of collage to represent the negative zone in the series was ahead of its time, showing readers that comics could be seen as fine art. The page represents Jack's forward-thinking ideas that pushed comic books as a medium.

Valve has announced the fifth set of games and applications to be approved through their Greenlight community review system.

The list includes Anodyne, the game that successfully embraced piracy to get noticed, and the wonderful iOS game Kingdom Rush. Receiver, Wolfire's intricate gun-detail FPS that I've been meaning to play, has also been approved. (A video demo of Receiver is up top. Doesn't that look cool?) There's also Surgeon Simulator 2013, which as Chris pointed out, is a mighty realistic heart surgery game.

Here's the full list, per Valve:

The latest software titles (see all Greenlit software here)

Black Ink – This innovative painting tool gives artists a incredibly powerful customization of brushes.

Driver Fusion – Keep your PC optimized and running fast, easily managing your devices and removing unnecessary drivers.

The latest games (see all Greenlit games here)

Anodyne – The two-man development team behind Anodyne recently gave away the game on Pirate Bay, sparking a huge surge in votes and attention from the community and press.

Distance – Featured in PCGamer's ‘best pc games of 2013' and successfully funded on Kickstarter, Distance is a unique survival racing game where you boost, jump, rotate, and even fly through a chaotic and twisted city.

Evoland – This journey through the history of action/adventure gaming caught our attention early on with their dramatic gameplay video and proved to also be a community favorite, getting voted up the charts in just a month.

Huntsman:The Orphanage – This unconventional survival-horror game has captured the interest of the community by showing a lot of detail, posting gameplay videos and responding frequently to fans.

Kingdom Rush – This highly rated tower-defense mobile game comes to PC and Mac, exciting the gaming press and picking up supporters across the Greenlight community.

Legends of Dawn – This open-world RPG has moved up the Greenlight charts quickly and steadily since being posted at the end of December. Along the way, they almost doubled their funding goal on Kickstarter.

Organ Trail: Director's Cut – This retro zombie survival game brings you back to the days of gaming where your friends lived long enough to die of dysentery.

Receiver – Detailed FPS game that puts you in control of solving puzzles and the mechanics of operating your weapons.

Surgeon Simulator 2013 – This simulation game quickly climbed the charts with their free demo and hilariously tricky gameplay.

War Thunder – This World War II MMO has seen huge success in its open beta, already logging a half-million players and tens of millions of hours played, translating to a huge community of voters on Greenlight as well.