2K Marin is busy busting some alien assignations with the first-person version of XCOM, but apparently it has plenty of artillery to throw around. J.R. Hogarth de la Plante, one of the founders of 2K Marin in 2007 and the lead artist/level architect on the BioShock series, lists an "Unannounced Title" for which he is the art director, right on his resume.

Hogarth de la Plante doesn't describe the new title itself, but does explain that it's a brand new IP that he and four other directors are inventing and pitching internally. If it's still open to improvisation, Mr. Hogarth, may we suggest a stylized, top-down 2D adventure, played as a Little Sister as she fights her way through the terrifying realm of 1980s high school? You're welcome.

The art of game design is a subtle, delicate craft that requires expertise, dedication and ingenuity to truly master. It's a skill that also goes largely uncelebrated, considering that the best game design is often unnoticeable when properly implemented.

Sequelitis, a new YouTube series from Awesome Series creator/animator Egoraptor, takes a hilarious look at the philosophy behind game design by comparing an original title to one of its sequels. The latest episode (above) takes a look at the differences between Castlevania and Super Castlevania IV, and how changing the whip and jumping mechanics fundamentally altered the game's structural underpinnings. It's a fascinating and remarkably entertaining way to learn about game design, so be sure and check out the first two episodes when you're done here.

At a 10th anniversary event for the Ace Attorney series in Tokyo, Capcom officially announced Ace Attorney 5, revealing the above logo. No specifics about the game were offered, including date, platform, or characters -- and there's no character silhouette in the logo to show us who the star is. All we know is that there is one, and we have to start presenting our case for a localization to Capcom.

The event also brought a small amount of news relating to Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney for 3DS: the animated cutscenes are produced by anime studio Bones, and the game is due sometime this year. Famitsu has screens from one of these cutscenes, of Phoenix and Maya on a plane ride.

Finally, new HD versions of the first three Ace Attorneys will be released on iOS. Check this Famitsu article for screens of the newly refreshed sprites.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]]

SoulCalibur 5 comes out on Tuesday, so we thought we'd take this opportunity to take a look back at the very first tale of swords and souls, eternally retold. Soul Edge (Soul Blade in North America) was released in arcades in 1995 and on the original PlayStation in 1996 and '97. The game's cast of characters lacked many of the series' most (currently) notable faces, including Ivy, Nightmare and Astaroth.

It did, however, include many gameplay mechanics which were never featured in any of its sequels, most notably breakable weapons and a rock-paper-scissors-esque minigame that would occur whenever two moves of equal strength and priority collided. The game also took place 23 years before SoulCalibur 5, which means that series masochist Voldo is well into his mid 60s at this point. While that mental imagine marinates, check out our favorite comics from last week. Vote after the break!

Spy Vs. Guy (Brawl in the Family)
Boxinalia (Penny Arcade)
Character Branding (Dueling Analogs)
Duty (Nerf Now!!)
See Horse (Awkward Zombie)
Samurai Shoboating (Life in Aggro)
They Should Really Make Those Games (GameOver Nation)
Tanooki Torment (Hejibits)

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If you love games of chance and stamping cards but hate being around the elderly, know that Zynga is working on a solution for your extremely specific and worryingly ageist dilema. Zynga Bingo has begun beta testing and will be made available to the general public "very soon," according to Shacknews.

The app will join Zynga Poker as part of the Zynga Casino suite and will allow players to score on up to six cards, as well as fill in spots on friends' cards. There will also be power-ups of some kind, which is where we expect to find Zynga's trademark monetization, although that's purely speculation on our part. We also expect Zynga Bingo to post "BINGO!" on your friends' walls every time you win, but we desperately hope we're wrong about that.

Despite previous indications to the contrary, the Joystiq Qrew is actually pretty keen on Valentine's Day. We're all hopeless romantics, but you don't need to be as in love with being in love as we are to recognize how precious, touching and clever these gaming themed Valentine's Day card templates are.

Made by Etsy user PaperRockScisorz and available at her shop, these print-your-own card templates feature Pokemon, Dr. Mario, Sonic, Zelda and Portal motifs with cutesy sayings and pixel hearts at $2.75 a pop. It's an easy and inexpensive way to show your significant other that you care, assuming you're lucky enough to share your life with a person that loves games as much as you do. If you're not that lucky, well, maybe get them a gift card or something. Single people are advised to dress up like a member of their preferred gender and have a romantic candle-lit dinner with themselves in a mirror. Ain't love grand?

Believe it or not, there are evil people on the Internet who use misinformation and deception to steal from the innocent and well-meaning. We know, we couldn't believe it either, but it's the truth, as recently demonstrated by an outbreak of fake Halo 4 beta test invites.

343 Industries' creative director David Ellis was quick to debunk the bogus site, but the URL used in the phishing scam (halo4beta dot net) is still out there, tempting fate with its Halo-oriented name and un-Microsoftness. Who knows what nefarious maleficence the domain could be used for if left in the wild, so Microsoft has filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum in order to have the domain name transferred to its ownership.

In situations like this, the company filing the complaint has to be able to prove that the domain in question was registered maliciously in order for the Forum to decide in its favor. Under the circumstances, we feel like global fraud will probably be malicious enough to sway things in Microsoft's favor.

To celebrate the release of Quarrel on XBLA, publisher Ignition has temporarily dropped the price ... of the iOS version. Don't spend too much time thinking about that -- instead, enjoy the excuse to pick up Quarrel Deluxe this weekend for a dollar.

The XBLA version remains at its full price, but, like, full price is five dollars. As we approach a 1200 MS Point ($15) standard for games, five bucks is not bad for a bit of wordplay.

There was once a time when "Final Fantasy" meant greatness, when seeing Square's brand on a game box meant you were about to play something special. That time has long since passed. In today's gaming landscape, Final Fantasy is more punchline than powerhouse, more quantity than quality. After the mediocre Final Fantasy XIII and the sheer disaster that was Final Fantasy XIV, many fans have lost faith in the RPG titan.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the publisher's attempt to mend this relationship. At times, it feels like the development team just went down a laundry list and added everything that fans believed Final Fantasy XIII lacked. Non-linear dungeons? Check. Sidequests? Check. NPCs and towns? Check, check. In other words, the whole game seems like one big apology.

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Nintendo is coming off of a pretty rough fiscal year, posting an anticipated loss of ¥65 billion ($839M) despite strong sales for Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. They're optimistic for the future, naturally, with the 3DS performing well since the price drop and the Wii U right around the corner, but that enthusiasm hasn't been enough to repair the company's trading value.

It's a serious situation with meaningful implications both for stockholders and the industry as a whole, so who better to provide a comprehensive breakdown of the situation than the incomprehensibly bizarre and often disturbing creative powerhouse that is NMA TV. If you've seen any of their other videos, you've got a good idea of what to expect in the media briefing above. If not, you'd better sit down.

Yesterday, we reported that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will make use of EA's Online Pass system, and that used copies of the game will not include access to a specific quest line, similar to Catwoman's Online Pass exclusion from used copies of Batman: Arkham City. Initially, it looked as though the pass granted access to data already on the disc, however this was later clarified by a post made on the 38 Studios Forums, where community manager Muse informed the public that the quest line is in fact day-one DLC, rather than content actually on the disc.

38 Studios founder Curt Schilling has written his own statement regarding the situation, and it's just about as frank and honest as we've come to expect from Schilling over the last couple of days: "You can argue the merits and effectiveness of it, but right now it's how it's done and as someone that's as invested as I am in this company, I stand by what has happened."

Schilling goes on to say that the free DLC is intended to be an incentive to early adopters and a reward for "fans and gamers who commit to us with their time and money when it benefits the company." He does, however, realize that the situation could have been handled differently: "It is my responsibility as the leader to know of things like this and be aware that it would become an issue, I failed on both accounts. No one else is to blame, but at the same time there is no nefarious attempt to do anything under handed here."

Minecraft has demonstrated some magnificent feats of community creation, but now it's also offering a lesson in the volatile side of crowd-sourcing. Changing the language to Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa and Namibia, yesterday caused the title screen to display the phrase "You are a NIGGER." As Minecraft Forums user EgXPlayer commented, "Thats racist."

Mojang's Jens Bergensten apologized for the slur and encouraged fans to check the new translation via Crowdin -- the Afrikaans home screen now reads "enkelspeler," which translates to "single player," as it should.

Edmund McMillen's The Binding of Isaac, a dark, "Roguelike" exploration of childhood trauma, is close to selling 450,000 copies.

"It's just ridiculous, there's no reason for this game to have done well. It's nice for everyone involved," McMillen said in an interview with IndieGames.

"When I started development on Isaac, I wasn't even sure if I should charge for it, because I didn't think people would want it, in all honestly. I had to shop it around to a bunch of different developers, and say like 'Do you think I could sell this?', because I thought it was way too weird, I thought the content was too disturbing and creepy. I thought it would just rub too many people the wrong way and I thought the design was just too hardcore for any kind of mass amount of people to enjoy."

Due to the success of Isaac, McMillen and crew are currently working on The Wrath of the Lamb expansion, which will be $3 and launch "when it's done."

By this point, the shiny veneer of newness has worn off of Sony's rapidly approaching Vita and we're all pretty used to how the thing looks. Not everyone has seen it in person yet, granted, but we've all seen it, and its PSP-ish profile and itty-bitty analogue sticks have settled into that comfortable zone of mental familiarity.

The device could have been remarkably different, however. For instance, Sony designer Takashi Sogabe (responsible for the Walkman, among other things) had originally intended for the Vita to be a much more svelte device: "The original design of the PS Vita, for example, was very much thinner than the current retail product," Sogabe said during an interview with The Guardian. "From a designer's point of view, thinner is better-looking, but the engineers wanted to put all the features in. Maybe it will become thinner in the future, but the engineers would have to come up with a means to do that."

There was also a time when the Vita's shape had more in common with the DS than the PSP: "We came up with various patterns, including a clamshell one. Then we discussed it with a lot of publishers and settled on this shape." In the long run, Sony decided that it would be a better idea to transfer the PSP's brand equity to the Vita by having the devices look similar.

One major difference between the PSP and Vita, however, is the latter's massive screen, which at 5 inches makes it the biggest screen on any dedicated portable gaming device this side of an iPad. That figure had started at 5.5 inches, according to Sogabe, but was scaled back seeing as this is a portable device and everything. We like Sony's ambition with hardware design, but we'd still rather have the real Vita over a giant, wafer-thin abalone.

Dead Block, a zombie-themed action strategy title released on PSN and XBLA last year, is now available on PC. Dead Block didn't exactly set the world on fire when it was released, but those interested in its rockabilly take on the zombie apocalypse can pick it up from several download services for $10.

Find the full list of sellers -- missing Steam, notably -- after the break.

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Earlier this week, it was announced that Aliens: Colonial Marines would be delayed until autumn. Although upsetting, this news would not have seared itself upon my brain had Barry White's "You're the First, The Last, My Everything" not been playing on Spotify radio. Just keep looking at the above picture and listen to the song here. So inappropriate.

What's everyone playing?

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For those not content with simply downloading the PC version of Alan Wake next month, Nordic Games has some good news. The Swedish publisher will be releasing a boxed version of Alan Wake's PC outing, with an official launch date to be announced in "the next few days."

Like its downloadable cousin, the boxed version will also include both of Alan Wake's DLC episodes, "The Signal" and "The Writer."

Here at Joystiq, we pride ourselves on being inside your mind, knowing what it wants, knowing what it thinks. We're like a somewhat creepier, less linguistic Babel Fish. The one thing your brain has been demanding is an updated version of 2002's Command & Conquer: Renegade.

We'd like to bring to your attention Renengade X: Black Dawn, a "spiritual successor" created by fans at Totem Arts. Tomorrow, the group will release the full single-player "mini-campaign," which was built in the Unreal Development Kit, and later Totem Arts plans to release a new multiplayer installment using the UDK.

In its current form, Renegade X is an updated version of the original game's multiplayer, made in Unreal Tournament 3, and has been playable for some time. If you want to partake, you'll need to own a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 with the latest updates.

Or, you know, just wait a day.

[Thanks, ssjChris!]