Once again, it’s time for some bouncy commentary from our socially engineered panel of experts!

BEWBS! In an video game industry increasingly sensitive to gender issues, it’s just lucky we have a developer like Vanillaware to come along and remind us that we’re really all just pretending to be grown-ups. To wit: George Kamitani’s character designs in Dragon’s Crown, Vanillaware’s side-scrolling fantasy elf-em-up, which skip merrily past “exaggerated” and go straight to “daaaaammn.”

It’s not uncommon to see female video game characters with breasts larger than their heads, but Kamitani’s art style — along with Crown’s hyper-jiggling animations — still gave a jaded gaming community pause. Then, when Jason Schreier at Kotaku called it juvenile in a slightly juvenile way, Kamitani doubled down, lightly suggesting that anyone not sexually aroused by his ladies’ physics-defying anatomy was probably gay, and that was probably bad. He’s apologized since.

All that leaves us feeling confused, angry, and possibly a little horny. So what say you, panel of experts? Artistic license or license revoked?

Launch the gallery below for wisdom!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I initially dismissed mobile title Jetpack Joyride as yet another clone of Helicopter Game, a one-note Flash game my friends and I used to play in high school instead of paying attention in class (until we figured out how to install Quake III Arena on the school laptops). The web-based game was incredibly simple — click to lift your chopper or release to let it fall while avoiding hitting anything as you fly through a cave.

But it was so addicting.

Considering that Helicopter Game came out in 2003, I couldn’t believe how Jetpack Joyride jazzed up so many people. It’s the same experience!

Actually, it’s not. Joyride takes the same premise and applies almost a decade’s worth of game psychology to create something even more addicting.

The most significant change is how much easier it is. If you weren’t paying attention when you started Helicopter Game, you could die immediately from touching the bottom of the cave. It required constant alertness. Joyride is more forgiving.

The hallway you fly through always stays totally level, so you never need to worry about your path slithering up and down, narrowing and opening at random. In fact, you can run on the ground or rub your head against the ceiling all you want as long as a laser or a missile is not in the way. You can get in vehicles that change the way you move and give you a buffer when you get hit. And you can buy items that give you everything from a head start to a second chance when you die.

Jetpack Joyride encourages you to keep playing because every run feels like it could be the one. But that’s not all.

You can buy unlockable gadgets, borrowing from Call of Duty’s addictive perks system, to give you different abilities like a jump, quicker falling, missile jamming capabilities, and a bouncy ball that deploys when you die to add a few more meters to your final distance. You can also purchase new outfits and jetpacks to customize your character.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been using the word “buy” a lot. That’s right. I haven’t even gotten to the coins yet. Oh God, the coins.

You’ll buy everything in the game with coins that you earn as you play or acquire with real money. That’s how Joyride keeps you hooked and how it gets you to play “just one more time.” You’re always so close to getting the next thing that you absolutely need, and it’s just so easy to start another run that you feel you might as well play just one more time.

Well, that one didn’t count because I died in the first 100 meters. That’s hardly a run. Just one more.

The game even borrows from the Xbox 360′s achievement system with persistent awards and a rotating set of three missions for you to complete, like collecting a certain amount of coins in one run, dying within a specific distance, or high-fiving the scientists that run along the ground.

You’ll want to complete missions, you see, because they unlock stars that will level you up. Then, you can earn more coins to buy more gadgets, so you can make earning coins easier to buy more gadgets to complete more missions. Get it?

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I’m a freelance games journalist. I write for some of the most progressive publications on the planet. I’m also a gun owner, supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and nominally inclined toward the National Rifle Association.

Strange, I know.

So when the NRA blamed the Newton, Connecticut tragedy on violent video games, it struck a raw nerve.

“There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people,” NRA President Wayne LaPierre said in a December 21st statement.

“Through vicious, violent video games with names like ‘Bulletstorm,’ ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ ‘Mortal Kombat’ and ‘Splatterhouse.’ And here’s one: it’s called ‘Kindergarten Killers.’ It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?”

Those who associate make-believe violence with real-life violence (particularly the idea that video games make kids more proficient marksmen) don’t understand gaming, firearms, or both. Since the NRA – the preeminent defender of the 2nd Amendment – is sufficiently acquainted with firearms, I’d have to conclude that it knows jack shit about gaming.

I don’t question Lt Col Dave Grossman’s expertise in firearms and marksmanship. But when the former parachute infantryman and U.S. Army Ranger calls certain games “murder simulators,” I can’t help but think that he’s never played a first-person shooter (or any video game with guns).

Anyone who’s both shot a weapon and played a video game in the last 20-30 years can point out clear differences between the two activities. Proper marksmanship entails a variety of mechanical, psychological, and physical elements that video games cannot possibly simulate.

I straddle the fence between gun owner and gamer so these discrepancies seem readily obvious to me. For example, no FPS, no matter how meticulously researched and detailed, can possibly mimic the recoil of a real-life weapon (especially the heavier automatic weapons).

The Weaver shooting stance. You can observe it in movies or video games but can only learn it by picking up a real-life weapon.

I shot an M2 Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun (“Ma Deuce”) from an enclosed Humvee turret once, and my ears were ringing afterward. No video game recreates the tactile response and visceral reality of firearms.

Playing Call of Duty won’t improve your sight picture, breathing, or hand placement. Medal of Honor won’t teach you the “weaver stance” or how to absorb the recoil of a .45 1911 pistol. Putting rounds downrange is the only way to become a more proficient shooter and learn the mechanical skills for handling a sidearm.

This is a very old argument. Any reasonable person — the key word being reasonable – can sense the innate difference between holding a virtual weapon and handling the wood and metal of a real-life firearm.

But few people can exhibit a basic level of familiarity with both video games and marksmanship. And every school shooting prompts calls for tighter regulation of our industry, and “violent video games” has become an all-too familiar refrain. U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has already passed a bill to direct the National Academy of Sciences to examine the link between violent video games and real-life violence. My guess? The study is inconclusive, finding no causal link between virtual entertainment and school shootings.

The Newton, Connecticut tragedy is symptomatic of many societal ills — ills that would more befit our tax dollars. Violent video games are not among them.

I’m not a member of the NRA. I support their mission but am generally adverse to large organizations. If I were, however, I would cancel my membership forthwith. Instead of launching a probe into the systematic failures that led to the Newton shootings or merely expressing their condolences, this influential lobbying group has cast aspersions on the least likely culprit.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This sponsored post is produced by StackSocial.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Jingoistic modern-day first-person shooters love quotes from icons of American history, or at least their loading screens seem to enjoy them. So I couldn’t help but use a JFK classic to summarize Medal of Honor: Warfighter as an experience: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

Electronic Arts’ recently released multiplatform first-person shooter assumes we can’t get enough of the blockbuster bang-and-boom escapades that have made competing franchises like Activision’s Call of Duty so popular.

Yet with Warfighter, EA remains at the rear of the corporate first-person-shooter platoon because it chose to march in place instead of moving forward.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Warfighter can’t hang with its big-budget brothers in arms, so let’s enter the fray and take a closer look.

What you’ll like

The modern-warfare shooter model is tired but still fun

Warfighter clearly takes inspiration from other releases in its genre. Unlike some of the me-too efforts that have followed a similar path, the gameplay here can be pretty fun at times. Shooting mechanics are familiar and precise. Helpful onscreen icons let you know when you’ve nailed that reflex-rewarding headshot. And single-player skirmishes give you access to a convenient peeking move that facilitates leaning around corners, adding a slight cover-based-shooter vibe to the combat. Sadly, the feature is unavailable for multiplayer encounters.

Wait … is this Need for Speed?

The remarkably short single-player campaign doesn’t just leave you gripping human-neutralizing weapons. It makes you grip a steering wheel every now and then, too. These vehicle sequences are surprisingly lengthy, and they task you with driving through people-packed Pakistani streets and freshly paved Dubai motorways. You’ll even get to maneuver an indestructible Zodiac boat through a fiery-and-flooded Filipino town.

While these moments don’t have the same feel as a tightly tuned EA racing title, they break up the body-count-boosting fighting sequences pretty effectively.

United Nations of multiplayer

Obviously, Warfighter puts a lot of emphasis on multiplayer. Playing on the Xbox 360, I had to insert a whole new disc just to battle other flesh-and-blood beings. Regardless, you’ll encounter many of the standard FPS multiplayer tropes. So expect to unlock different combat classes and weapon loadouts by racking up kills in the different online modes.

What makes Warfighter stand out, however, is its global approach to the aforementioned classes. Keeping with its from-the-frontlines tone, you’re immediately asked to browse through different real-world, tier-one special-forces archetypes representing 10 countries. You can deploy as a United States Army SFOD-D assaulter, a Canadian JTF2 sniper, or even a German KSK heavy gunner, among others. While somewhat superficial, the international angle adds an interesting layer to the typical choose-your-guy-and-go approach.

Multiplayer also introduces the “fire team” concept where you’re paired with someone for a group-deathmatch session. You’ll receive bonuses as you help your fellow friendly, and you’ll even have the option to respawn at your buddy’s location (if he can stay alive long enough).

What you won’t like

Mediocrity ‘inspired by real events’

Every contemporary-combat based FPS has a gratuitous near-death, arms-flailing-in-front-of-you, holy-expletive moment or two … or 12. Warfighter joins the club, but the instances in its single-player campaign take inspiration from actual events, adding a never-before-seen level of “realism.” So this time, when a massive explosion causes a chain reaction that leads to a giant crane collapsing on top of you, it’s more “lifelike.”

Horribly rendered CG cutscenes try to weave a patronizing and sometimes confusing tale of country-first heroes sacrificing their personal lives in the name of righteousness. One of the protagonists deals with personal crises involving his need-to-know-basis mission and uncanny valley-dwelling wife and daughter. Again, mimicking the “real thing.”

The genuine men and women fighting these wars are facing life-and-death threats, both on and off the battlefield. No one can replicate or claim to replicate what they’ve gone through, are going through, and will go through. Most FPS releases hide behind a digital veil of ignorance. They’re just video games, right? Nothing but mindless fun. EA deliberately chose to stick the authenticity label on Warfighter, and that decision brings the consequences, and scrutiny, that come with it.

In short, Warfighter feels like a Michael Bay movie masquerading as a Kathryn Bigelow film.

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At the Rooster Teeth Expo (an event for fans of the comedy team behind Internet video series Red vs. Blue), Halo 4 developer 343 Industries fielded questions from fans regarding their concerns over the franchise’s evolving multiplayer. Recent hands-on reports with the game have left many with the impression that the Seattle-based 343 is trying to borrow from the Call of Duty series.

Before a match, players can select a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, a grenade, an armor ability, a tactical package, and/or a support upgrade. Many fans and detractors point to this design decision as something that is directly lifted from the Acitivision first-person shooter series.

According to Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor, that isn’t how they view it. “When we were first starting to create the multiplayer, we thought that the loadout system looked more like Gradius than anything else,” O’Connor told fans during the Halo 4 RTX panel.

Gradius is a Konami-developed two-dimensional side-scrolling arcade shooter. Players could upgrade their weapons and speed as they unlocked more options for their ships.

We can see the similarity, but our cynical hearts are telling us that the Halo 4 system still looks more like what Infinity Ward designed for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Certain Affinity, an Austin-based studio, announced during the panel that it is aiding 343 Industries in the development of Halo 4. That company’s president and founder, Max Hoberman, also responded to the claims that the multiplayer is similar to Call of Duty.

Hoberman explained that Certain Affinity worked on the Call of Duty series, and that Halo 4 is fundamentally different. ”What we’ve done to Halo 4 multiplayer is incredibly true to the Halo series,” Hoberman told the crowd.

O’Connor also explained that the team didn’t want to do a public beta for Halo 4′s multiplayer. The team explained that the only feedback they would expect to get would be from super fans demanding that 343 undo all of its changes.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Microsoft’s Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb posted his regular activity roundup for the Xbox 360’s online network, and the Minecraft mania flows strong on the lists.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition nabbed the top position for bestsellers as well as sliding in behind long-standing champions Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops for unique-user counts. Other titans felt the squeeze: Battlefield 3, Halo: Reach, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Gears of War 3 trailed by significant margins.

Here’s the punchline: All of this happened in Minecraft’s first week of release.

Creativity spawns popularity, or so the legions of Minecraft’s stalwart community believes. Originally released for the PC on November 18, 2011, the open-world tinkering title arms players with pick, axe, sword, and other tools while throwing open the floodgates of crowdsourced content, resulting in masterful works such as a recreated Westeros from Game of Thrones and Portal’s test chambers.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition launched on May 9, promptly fashioned a golden sword, and smashed digital-sales records on its first day in the wilds. Its 1,600 Microsoft Points ($20) cost, unusually large for an XBLA title, and its lack of a modding infrastructure didn’t prevent the acclaim rolling in.

Check out Major Nelson’s activity lists below. If you’re playing Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, what have you created so far? Let us know in the comments!

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on unique users)

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops
3. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
4. FIFA 12
5. Battlefield 3
6. Halo: Reach
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
8. NBA 2K12
9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
10. Gears of War 3
11. Grand Theft Auto IV
12. Trials Evolution
13. Forza Motorsport 4
14. Mass Effect 3
15. NHL 12
16. Madden NFL 12
17. Halo 3
18. Red Dead Redemption
19. Saints Row: The Third
20. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)

1. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
2. Trials Evolution
3. The Walking Dead
4. Fable Heroes
5. Fez
6. Pinball FX2
7. Awesomenauts
8. I Am Alive
9. Castle Crashers
10. Family Game Night
11. Fruit Ninja Kinect
12. Bloodforge
13. Toy Soldiers: Cold War
14. Gotham City Impostors
15. Toy Soldiers
16. Trials HD
17. Dungeon Defenders
18. Full House Poker
19. Peggle
20. Magic: The Gathering — Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

Top Indie Games (Full Versions purchased)

1. CastleMiner Z
2. CastleMiner
3. Total Miner: Forge
4. The $1 Zombie Game
5. FortressCraft: Chapter 1
6. The Impossible Game
7. Avatar Paintball
8. Avatar Deathmatch
9. Fortress Wars
10. FLIRT
11. End of Days: Infected vs. Mercs
12. Avatar Legends
13. Flight Adventure 2
14. Toy Stunt Bike 2
15. Solar 2
16. Firing Range 2
17. Miner4Ever
18. Avatar Air Wars
19. Don’t Die Dateless, Dummy!
20. Attack of the Zombie Horde

Games for Windows Top Live Titles (based on unique users)

1. Grand Theft Auto IV
2. Age of Empires Online
3. Batman: Arkham City
4. Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition
5. Microsoft Flight
6. Batman: Arkham Asylum
7. DiRT 3
8. Gotham City Impostors
9. F1 2011
10. Resident Evil 5
11. Fallout 3
12. Street Fighter X Tekken
13. Toy Soldiers
14. Fable III
15. BioShock 2
16. Colin McRae: Dirt 2
17. Bulletstorm
18. F1 2010
19. Street Fighter IV
20. Section 8: Prejudice

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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