Note: This article contains every spoiler for Season One of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead.

Developer Telltale’s The Walking Dead was our pick for the best game of 2012. GamesBeat reporter Jeff Grubb describes it as “Regret: The Video Game” because at every point, the adventure throws difficult choices its players, and you’re often left wondering how things might have gone if you’d made a different decision along the way.

You could certainly find out if you played through The Walking Dead several more times, but we’ll do you one better: The below graph collects all of the choices and outcomes throughout the game into one chart. At first glance, it doesn’t look like much changes at all (because it doesn’t), but the experience of playing through Lee’s and Clementine’s story is not in the boxes on this chart but the lines connecting them.

At the end of Episode 1, did you save Carley because she was good with a gun? Or did you let her die because she couldn’t figure out how to put batteries into a radio? While the plot itself does not change too drastically based on your decisions, the stories we tell about it do.

But if you’re really just curious about the other possibilities, here you go. Click on the image to view it at its full size.

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Robert Kirkman has a twisted mind. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his psyche lurked tales of hacking off limbs, gouging of eyes with spoons, and pinning down male genitalia with nails. And this doesn’t even have anything to do with what the zombies do. He just has to let all that shit out. That’s the only explanation I can think of for The Walking Dead, the writer’s ongoing black-and-white comic book story that has expanded its reach to television and video games.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (out now for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC) isn’t your typical first-person zombie-shootin’ game since you can’t mow down the undead with a generous supply of bullets. It takes place in the early days of the zombie apocalypse from AMC’s version of The Walking Dead — the popular TV series based on the comic — and puts you in the role of Daryl Dixon, the show’s crossbow-firing antihero.

In keeping with the fiction’s rules, gunshots and explosions attract way more zombies (via sight and sound) than those they actually kill, so it’s best to stick with melee weapons and close encounters to ensure Daryl’s safety as he fights through Georgia in search of his older brother, Merle. Developer Terminal Reality wisely emphasizes a survival aspect that zombie-focused games usually ignore, but it’s not enough to elevate Survival Instinct (as played on a PS3) from being more than just a mediocre experience.

What you’ll like

Struggling to survive

Unlike the undead shooting gallery seen in Left 4 Dead or Call of Duty: Black Ops II’s outlandish zombie mode, Survival Instinct has a distinctive gameplay loop of exploration, scavenging, and hunting down walkers (The Walking Dead’s parlance for zombies). It all comes together really well in the first few hours — you need to look for gas cans so you have enough fuel to travel from town to town; you explore that area for food, munitions, and possible survivors to bring with you; and when you’re done there, you drive over to the next place and repeat the process.

Zombies aren’t just cannon fodder since it only takes a handful of them to kill you. The best strategy is to break them up into smaller groups or isolate them individually, and then sneak behind and smash or stab their heads with weapons like a baseball bat or a machete. It’s impossible to account for every single corpse roaming around, so I always felt nervous when exploring an infested town. But it’s all the more thrilling when you do manage to outsmart them by picking them off or when you successfully hide from a huge herd that’s coming after you.

The road is fraught with danger as well. The chances of your car breaking down or finding a pit stop to search for supplies depends on which of the three routes you take. Driving down the back roads use up a lot of fuel, but you’ll pull over more often for supply runs. Regular streets take up a little less gas and gives you a medium chance to find new areas. And highways need the least amount of fuel, but you’ll also have a high probability that your car will stall.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct screenshots

Grounding this risk/rewards system in some sense of realism makes your experience unpredictable. I thought I was doing well when I had a surplus of food and guns … but the next area I traveled through (and the herd of zombies I met) nearly drained me of all of my resources.

It’s a solid system that would’ve worked well with better level designs and mission objectives. But repetition began to set in halfway through my 8.5 hour playthrough thanks to a bunch of problems, which more development time could have fixed.

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Telltale Games have become one of my favorite and most respected developers literally overnight. Recently, against my own better judgement, I gripped my controller with mixed anticipation and anxiety late into the night when I knew I would have to walk out my front door for work in the morning. Yet, even with the threat of extreme tiredness almost guaranteed, I had to finish the final episode of Telltale’s award-winning Walking Dead series. Having joined the “walker” bandwagon late with the television series, I was reluctant to believe any meaningful story could come from a series centered on zombies. Little did I know how emotionally engrossing the universe based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novels would be.

After obsessively watching the television series from the pilot all the way up to the third season in a little more than a week (yes, seriously), I realized that if a developer could create an experience as heart-wrenching as the TV series, then it would be something truly special.

What sets Lee and Clementine’s story apart from literally everything else I have ever played is not just the superbly written characters but also the emotional impact that comes from every player choice. These decisions don’t just feel superficial, they present real conundrums. For me, the choice mechanic was far more refined than similar systems featured in games like BioWare’s Mass Effect series. The key to The Walking Dead’s choices is the complete absence of a moral code. Ultimately, you only answer to your conscience after making your decisions.

Perhaps I have grown tired of the bloated role-playing titles and rehashed military shooters that have released in a period where the current console generation is on the verge of retirement. Maybe my feelings might simply be a case of cynicism from growing older. One thing I am sure of, though, is that I have begun to value strong narrative above everything else as a means of holding onto my attention. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is probably the best example I can use to explain my convoluted views more coherently. Treyarch’s latest iteration of the COD franchise is, by all means, a magnificent first-person shooter. Yet, it is the first one since I started playing the series that I have simply lost all desire to play.

This isn’t because the game is bad (it’s easily as good, if not better, than previous entries), but upon reaching the halfway mark of the single-player campaign, I realized that I was just playing without any motivation. The arsenal of guns felt punchy, the locales were exotic, and I had the mindset of a soldier. Yet, despite all of this, I still felt completely disconnected from the game’s world. The Call of Duty series isn’t renowned for its resonating narrative, and regardless of how action packed everything around me was, I just couldn’t find entertainment in killing large swathes of grunts with little more justification than “they work for the bad guy who wants to make the world burn.”

Mass Effect and Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution are superbly crafted games, but even such widely praised titles felt artificial in their climaxes with awkwardly presented, arbitrary choices. Above all, I think what makes Telltale’s efforts so unique and entertaining is the nature of the story that they are telling. The characters’ struggle for survival is emotionally familiar, and that creates brilliant entertainment value. Just like in Kirkman’s novels, the zombies are simply a means to an end in telling a story of how extreme situations can fundamentally change a person’s nature. The characters are struggling in a fictional world with very real, human problems.

Undoubtedly, everyone has different tastes, and I would never expect or want everyone to share this view. As I have conveyed in this article, I am by no means trying to detract from titles that prioritize action over narrative. Above all, the games industry is desperate to prove it is capable of telling mature stories, but I think it has already achieved this lofty goal. The question that remains on my lips is: Can a game truly have both an enthralling narrative combined with an equally stunning amount of spectacle?

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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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Warning: The interview below includes sizable spoilers, so it’s recommended you have completed The Walking Dead: Season 1 game before reading.

Halfway through Season One of The Walking Dead by Telltale Games, I rage-quit. I didn’t want to be a part of the narrative anymore because I felt like what I had been promised as a player had been taken away. Control. Decision-making. The consequences of my own actions. I could see the man behind the curtain and that I was really playing his game, experiencing his story, not my own. I eventually went back and completed the final episodes, but begrudgingly so.

So with that in mind, I made sure to grab Dan Connors, the chief executive officer of developer Telltale Games, at the recent D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas to chat about a few specific moments in The Walking Dead, lessons learned by the developers, and whether we should expect to be playing as Clementine in Season Two.

Did I mention the spoilers?

GamesBeat: What did your involvement entail with The Walking Dead game?

Dan Connors: I’m part of the creative oversight. Generally, when decisions are required about what direction we should go, or if something isn’t working, or something should remain in the game, or we’re deciding how to solve certain problems … I’m usually consulted. I work with the team to get the right direction.

GamesBeat: Let’s start by talking about your play style for The Walking Dead. Do you try and walk on the moral high ground, or do you go a little bit darker?

Connors: I work on it, you know. I play it when it’s in development. So … I explore it all. I have to. Left to my own devices, I would probably try to do the right thing. I generally want to fit in with the group and have everybody feel like I’m cool with them. It’s funny, though. I told Clem her parents were dead. Every now and then I’ll go through, and I’ll see something. “When did they put that in? I wonder what that does.” It’ll be something like telling her her parents are dead. I’ll click it, and then she’ll start to cry. Did you do that?

GamesBeat: I tried to be realistic with her while still taking her current emotional state into account, so not until closer toward the end. But I was pretty sure she knew at that point even before she saw them.

Connors: Yeah, I did it early. She just started tearing up. It was horrible. Usually … we always talk about this. We don’t get to experience it in the way that other people experience it because we know what’s going to happen all the time. It doesn’t unfold in front of us. We never really know how people feel about the game. But when we play through, it’s definitely a — I’ll usually try everything at least once. I’ve probably played each episode 30 or 40 times at different stages of development. I don’t really have a style.

GamesBeat: That’s fair enough. Let’s talk about Clementine, who’s become this iconic game character. She’s so well fleshed-out and relatable. What are some of the tricks that you’ve learned in that process? What are the golden rules in creating deep characters like her that you could share with other developers who are trying to build a more believable game world?

Connors: Honestly, I think building a believable 8-year-old girl — an enjoyable, believable 8-year-old girl that isn’t annoying or cloying — in any medium is an accomplishment. I think that on the one hand, [writer/director] Sean Vanaman’s handling of Clem as a character and his direction to people about how she should be represented was huge. He really owned it and crafted that character very well. That one in particular is — there’s no real simple thing to do. She needed to be tough but sensitive. She needed to be a little girl, but she needed to be more grown up. She couldn’t be annoying, but she needed to be cute. It really was a well-crafted series of dialogue.

And then, out of all of that, she needed to be able to go from — she needed to be able to respond to you being mean to her or to you being super-caring to her, and everywhere in the middle. There weren’t a lot of tricks with Clem. Were you at the J.J. Abrams thing this morning? Remember the scene they did with Bruce Willis and his wife [from Die Hard]? That moment, in my mind, is like the moment that you described. It’s just a strong character-building scene moment. Investing the time in giving her those moments where you can get to know her a little bit is really what made it happen.

GamesBeat: So in the game, you’re no longer a passenger like you are in the comic and TV show. You’re making the decisions about who lives or dies, even if you didn’t realize that’s what you were doing. You’re accountable. So there’s one moment that really jarred me out of that immersion, that illusion of control.

It’s in the third episode, where Carley dies. The reason why that really broke the entire experience for me and also why that was very upsetting is because, most of the time, when a character dies, there was either nothing you could do or you made a decision that led to that. When Carley died, I’m standing right there, and I can see Lilly is getting more and more agitated. She’s about to do something stupid. You can tell that moment is coming.

Connors: Yeah.

GamesBeat: And then it just happens. I knew it was coming, and it was like … .

Connors: Don’t kill Carley. Don’t kill Carley. [Laughs]

GamesBeat: Give me that moment. Even if it’s very short. You do have some where it’s these emergency quick-time events, where if you don’t press it immediately, something bad will happen. But the player doesn’t even get that. No matter what you do in the game, Carley’s going to die. So for me, I felt like that really kind of went against what even you guys were saying The Walking Dead was intended to do. In every episode, it says that this game is about the choices you make. They’ll determine the path you walk and have consequences. That was the one fairly important moment where you didn’t have a choice at all, even though some people probably saw it coming. So with that long-ass description, what are your thoughts, specifically, on that moment? What was the reaction? Am I alone on this?

Connors: [Laughs] We’ve got a reaction video from that. I think the strong thing is — we were able to create a character in Carley, and in some cases Doug, that people really connected with and were attached to. That made losing those characters in that scene feel horrible. But the way in which the player was … it was kind of unforeseen. The way it was thought about internally was, sometimes in this universe, there’s just nothing you can do. That’s just the way The Walking Dead universe is. Sometimes you’re just going to lose people, and you can’t do anything about it. We didn’t do it again. So I think there was resonance about the fact that it didn’t hit people in the right way after that.

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At 57, Warren Spector is a famous and unemployed game developer. At last week’s DICE Summit, Spector gave a talk about his art form and acknowledged the “elephant in the room.” Disney had just shut down his video game company, Junction Point Studios, the maker of the Epic Mickey series.

He isn’t talking about exactly why that happened, but it’s no secret that the studio’s second release, Epic Mickey: The Power of Two, didn’t sell well. Spector made a lot of comments about how he felt like the oldest game designer, though he noted the presence of many “gray beards” in the room listening to his talk. Spector was understandably downbeat during his presentation, and he intimated that he felt like he was the oldest person still making games. But he found some silver lining in his tired but wise message.

“I worked with an amazing team on amazing projects,” he said. “I got to visit Disneyland as a contributor to the company.”

Quoting inventor Alexander Graham Bell, Spector said, “When one door closes, another opens. Another aphorism is more relevant. ‘Chaos is a friend of mine.’ Bob Dylan said it in 1965, and it is still true today. I have seen so much chaos in the last 35 years, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Being unemployed has given Spector a chance to reflect on the past. Lots of console-game developers are closing now. But Spector remembers how people thought gaming had no future when arcades died out. When the PC supplanted the Apple II, fans thought that was the end of games as well. Massively multiplayer online titles were going to put an end to single-player releases. Spector has heard it all, yet the interactive-entertainment industry continues to grow and spread out in all directions.

After Junction Point shut down, a programmer asked Spector if he wanted to retire. But Spector knew he wouldn’t.

“I still have stuff I want to make,” he said. “It was an eye-opening question. I am close to an end of a career. I’m not ready to retire yet.”

Spector believes, like Quantic Dream’s David Cage, that developers should grow up and figure out how to reach wider audiences with more diverse content. But he disagreed with every solution that Cage recommended in his own DICE talk, such as creating games with meaning.

Showing a slide of a violent scene, Spector said, “Some games should not be made.” He acknowledged that a time existed when he was young where a title only needed “transgressive adrenaline rush and spectacle.” Now he wants content that is relevant to him today, with intellectual offerings like Cage’s Heavy Rain and Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead.

Spector said, “I have no interest in guys who wear armor and swing big swords. I really don’t need to go there anymore. I want content that is relevant to my life. That is set in the real world.”

“If we are going to reach a broader audience, we have to think beyond teen boys and girls, about things that are relevant to normal humans,” he said.

Right now, games appeal to people who have a lot of time and the ability to master skills best done by 16-year-olds.

In his 50s, Spector feels confident in his abilities and doesn’t give a damn what others think. Emotionally, he’s in a good place. But he recognizes that time is scarce.

“You don’t have time to make mistakes anymore. You value passion over analytics,” he said.

He said that it’s OK to rely on others and slow down. It’s OK for him to think about helping others accomplish their goals and give back.

“Know thyself but be careful,” he said. Spector explained that you don’t want to work on a certain kind of game for 30 years because that is your habit. You have to think about what else you can do.

“You should push aside those geekish things quicker than I did because you don’t have as much time as you think,” he said.

And he has come to appreciate the importance of the word “legacy.”

He said, “Leave something behind. Most people who are working for 30 years. You are creating something new and different the world has never seen. Think of your legacy.”

What will he do when he is in his 60s?

“I cannot wait to find out,” he said.

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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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Darabont says his show is based on a novel of the same name by John Buntin published in 2010. “But the video game company with the video game called L.A. Noire — with an e! — threatened to sue the shit out of me, TNT, every company that actually ever worked in Hollywood. And they have the billions of dollars to back it up, apparently,” says Darabont in a recent interview with website io9.

L.A. Noire publisher Take-Two Interactive is denying it threatened the director with a lawsuit. In a statement to Kotaku, spokesperson Alan Lewis said, “It’s unfortunate that Mr. Darabont finds it necessary to gain publicity by making inaccurate statements – Take-Two never contacted Mr. Darabont nor threatened to sue any party. The facts are that Take-Two reached out to Turner to express concern over confusion between the properties, and they responded that they had decided to change the title of the show independent of Take-Two’s concerns.”

The pilot for Lost Angels takes place in 1947 Los Angeles and stars actor Jon Bernthal, who formerly worked with Darabont on The Walking Dead and played Shane. It will air on TNT.

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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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Well, that was fast.

Activision plans to release The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, the first-person-shooter adaptation of The Walking Dead television show, on March 26 in North America for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC. AMC, the cable network that airs the show, announced its release date on its blog.

Players take the role of Daryl Dixon as he works with his brother, Merle, to survive the newly zombified Atlanta.

Here’s the teaser trailer:

This game has little to do with the Telltale adventure game that won our Game of the Year award a few weeks back. Activision based Survival Instinct solely on the show, where The Walking Dead from Telltale works mostly from the comic book series that the show is based on.

So far, all things The Walking Dead have found major critical or commercial success. The books are still among the top-selling black-and-white comics every month, the cable show often has more viewers than the majority of broadcast television, and Telltale’s The Walking Dead earned numerous accolades during gaming’s award season (including GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year nod).

Survival Instinct has a lot to live up to.

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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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Video games give players the ability to do anything they want with just a few simple taps on a controller. Would you like to do a backflip? We have a button for that. Are you looking for Jason? Games have you covered. How about clearing a room of enemies via a series of increasingly complex fighting moves, including this really cool one that involves a lemon wedge and a stuffed duck? OK, that’ll be at least six or seven presses, but it will happen, and you’re gonna love it.

But sometimes, the interface fails, and we find ourselves wanting to do something that developers never really took into consideration. Here are eight button prompts we would have loved to see in some recent games — even if they wouldn’t all be particularly useful.

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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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Telltale Games had one hell of a 2012. It released its successful adaptation of The Walking Dead (which GamesBeat named its Game of the Year).

How does the developer plan to follow that up? Well, it sounds like it wants to work on some of the biggest video game and movie franchises in existence.

“Coming from LucasArts, we always felt we could do a great Star Wars story game,” Telltale chief executive officer Dan Connors told Red Bull U.K. in an interview. “We also love the idea of building out a deeper story to a great game franchise — something like Half Life Stories or Halo Stories.”

Of course, the developer has nothing in the works that involves Halo, Half-Life, or Star Wars, but Connors and the rest of the team at Telltale believe they are ready for something of that scale.

“[Dan Connors was] speaking more to our goal of wanting to take on a major gaming franchise someday,” Telltale’s senior vice president of publishing Steve Allison told GamesBeat. “[We want] to build a narrative game series that supports another franchise — as we passionately believe [our game] would not compete with or cannibalize [Halo 4 or the next Half-Life.]“

Allison believes that a Telltale adventure game based on a major gaming or movie franchise would only boost player investment in the series. Especially since the developer’s games are so different from what most of these properties are best known for.

“Will we do this? Yes, we believe we will some time very soon,” said Allison. “But the franchises mentioned are totally speculative and used only as an example to frame the idea.”

So maybe Telltale won’t make a Star Wars, Halo, or Half-Life game, but it’s obviously pursuing something along those lines.

Can I make a suggestion? How about Telltale’s Star Trek set in the time of the original series?

Please and thank you.

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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 think it’s safe to say that developer Telltale’s The Walking Dead (released in episodes over the last year for Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, PC, and iOS devices) has already embedded its legacy in video game history, and it’s quite apparent that many others would agree. This past November, the Spike Video Game Awards marked the title as Game of the Year.

It’s true. The Walking Dead really was an incredible experience, but why do we all remember it so fondly? I’d be willing to bet that the game’s story gripped players and compelled them to continue from start to finish. The narrative of The Walking Dead was indeed one of the most memorable and engaging stories told through a video game in this generation. It had realistic and relatable characters, it had emotions across the board, and it forced players to ponder their own methods of making decisions.

But if we were to analyze this game in the same manner as most other major releases, would it really measure up? What I’m trying to say is: If not for its story, The Walking Dead may not have been so successful.

Lacking in gameplay

While we can officially call The Walking Dead a video game, most of the 3-hour long, periodically released episodes involve conversing with characters and building relationships but, admittedly, not much else.

The game is a point-and click-adventure, but the periods of control over main character Lee’s movements and exploration are few and far between. While the game has us solving the occasional puzzle, none of them were really anything to write home about. It’s understood that many players enjoy point-and-click gameplay, but think about the way most critics reviewed The Walking Dead. Under the usual pretenses, a game is usually rated not only by its story but also by its presentation and gameplay. If The Walking Dead was reviewed according to these guidelines, the final verdict would be less than what most of us seem to conclude.

Now, whether or not these commonly used guidelines are appropriate (many believe that the system is broken), we can’t deny that this title would have failed in any other category aside from story.

The few instances of gameplay are lackluster in quality

To be more specific, we are occasionally treated to a sequence of first-person-styled shooting in The Walking Dead — one of the few occasions where the game presents us with what can really be classified as “gameplay.”

The problem is that these instances weren’t as successful as Telltale probably intended them to be. During these sequences, controls and movements where clunky and unstable, which didn’t facilitate one’s ability to act on instinct and hit one’s targets. There were, of course, a few select parts of the game where we were able to fight with melee weapons, which was a bit more successful but still boils down to simple point-and click-actions resulting in short cutscenes of Lee dispatching a zombie for us. Most of the time, critics chastise gameplay of this quality, but because this was not the main focal point of The Walking Dead, it reviewers politely brushed this off and presented the story as the primary aspect of the game.

Issues with presentation

Nearly every review of The Walking Dead drew attention to the title’s low frame rate as well as the awkward movement of the characters.

Critics commonly criticize issues such as these for breaking the player’s immersion within a game’s narrative as well as being sloppy overall. Again, while these problems came up on occasion, reviewers managed to ignore them almost the entire way through due to the emphasis on the story. Like I said before, any other major release (or any other game at all for that matter) would have suffered greatly due to such mishaps in presentation.

A final word

It would be hard to disagree with the majority that The Walking Dead was truly a great game, and I can’t disagree because I, along with most of the gaming community, absolutely loved playing it.

The title was one of the (if not the single) most enjoyable and compelling gaming experiences of 2012. Why is that? Because of the expertly executed story being the main focal point of the game. It’s because of that story that The Walking Dead was so successful and managed to pull so many players and critics alike over to its side. Still, we have to admit that if not for the story, The Walking Dead probably would not have been such a success since the actual game portion is not exactly on par with what most of us see as an exceptional experience.

But is that a bad thing? No, not really. In fact, it can be seen as a step forward for video games as a storytelling medium while at the same time proving how video games may be maturing (even if only slightly) and growing to become more than just virtual shooting galleries and interactive gentlemen’s clubs. All jokes aside; despite what the game might be lacking in the literal gameplay department, The Walking Dead is, without a doubt, deserving of every ounce of its praise.

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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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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, GamesBeat celebrates the biggest games and news of 2012 with several retrospective features. Even though the year is almost over, that doesn’t mean we’re completely out of news yet, however. You’ll also find stories on Nintendo patenting a specific use for the Wii U’s dual-screen functionality, Microsoft releasing an iPhone and iPad game with Xbox Live Achievements, and where to buy the documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang without digital rights management.

Best of 2012:

The DeanBeat: Game industry predictions for 2013
Here’s the scorecard on our 2012 predictions for the game industry
The biggest gaming trends of 2012
The news that shook the game world in 2012
Kickstarter game projects raised $79M in 2012
GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year: The Walking Dead
The best games of 2012 (GamesBeat staff picks)
The worst gaming trends of 2012
The best MMOs of 2012
12 of the best games for your new mobile device
The best video game trailers of 2012
The biggest gaming disappointments of 2012
The best video game soundtracks of 2012
The biggest gaming surprises of 2012
Top 15 mobile games of 2012
2012′s most innovative game ideas
Top gaming technologies of 2012
5 of the best original games of 2012
The best indie games of 2012
The video game industry’s 2012 holiday cards

News:
Blizzard: ‘We are going back to the drawing board’ for team deathmatch in Diablo III
International Game Developers Association appoints new executive director
This week in The Nintendo Download: Wii U discounts, Lost Levels, and Mega Man
Nintendo uploads tip videos for New Super Mario Bros. U to YouTube
Nintendo secures the patent for a specific use of the Wii U’s dual-screen functionality
How to gain early access to the Dead Space 3 demo
Microsoft launches first game for iPhone, iPad with Xbox Achievements
Where to buy Minecraft: The Story of Mojang documentary without DRM

Previews:
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is an ambitious shooter that’s faithful to the show (preview)

Pieces of flair:
How Canada has become America’s mobile app guinea pig
A tale of two zombie games: The Walking Dead vs. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
5 worse BioShock Infinite covers
How major MMOs are celebrating Christmas in-game (gallery)
The many major missteps of Far Cry 3
Outlandish factoids from Street Fighter’s expanded universe (gallery)

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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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One is an episodic adventure game that earned our Game of the Year award. The other is a first-person survival shooter coming out in 2013 that’s based on the AMC television show. Both are a part of the growing multimedia empire of The Walking Dead, which began with Robert Kirkman’s long-running series of mature graphic novels set in a zombie apocalypse.

The world is big enough to handle Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead: The Game and Terminal Reality’s The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, but will fans of the games/comic/show embrace them in the same way? And what makes them so different from each other? Here’s a quick look at what these zombie-killing tales have to offer.

Who you play as

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
You aim your crossbow and slice off heads with an axe as Daryl Dixon. In the current season of the TV show, he is an indispensable fighter in Rick Grime’s group of survivors, learning to put their needs above his own. Since Survival Instinct takes place before season one, however, the game shows us another version of Daryl as the reckless man who’d rather beat up someone he’s arguing with than talk it out.

His older brother Merle is partly to blame: He’s just as dangerous and as disgusting as a white trash stereotype. Developer Terminal Reality wouldn’t get into specifics about how it’s making Daryl a compelling character for the player to care about, but the show implies that Daryl really is a good guy who’s brought down by some bad people in his life.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Lee Everett is on his way to prison for murder when his police escort crashes into a walker, freeing the convict but sentencing him to a fate worse than anything the court system could come up with. The first survivor he encounters is Clementine, an orphaned little girl who shapes Lee’s (and the player’s) decisions throughout their adventure. Lee struggles to reconcile his past transgressions with this new world, and it’s up to you to either reveal or hide your crime from Clementine and the other people you meet.

Gameplay

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Don’t expect to blow through walkers like you do terrorists in Call of Duty. You should only use guns as a last resort since the loud noise just attracts more of the undead. Your best bet is to go in quietly with melee attacks, but that leaves you vulnerable for zombies to grab you. Terminal Reality’s record for the most zombie kills without dying is seven, according to the studio.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Traditional point-and-click mechanics, where you move a cursor around the screen to highlight objects to interact with, take up most of your time. The game strays from this formula in tense combat scenes, which require precision and timing: You hover the cursor over a specific point (usually the zombie’s head) before pressing another button to strike. If you react too slowly, you’ll die and repeat the segment.

Timed decision-making is also a crucial component. When characters speak to Lee, you can choose from four different responses, including the option to sit out and remain silent. These dialogue choices can affect plot points and how other characters think of you in later episodes.

Adherence to the source material

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Terminal Reality is working closely with the AMC screenwriters to make Survival Instinct an accurate reflection of the tone and theme of the show, which is carving a path separate from the one written by Kirkman in the graphic novels. This leads to a realistic but stylized aesthetic, with the brutality and the gore kept intact. Actors Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker reprise their roles as Daryl and Merle, respectively.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Telltale worked with Kirkman on expanding the storyline in the comics, with mostly new locations and characters (except for brief cameos) not seen in previous issues. The Walking Dead: The Game has a cel-shaded look to honor its heritage though it ditches the uniform black and white drawings in favor of some color. It’s a striking combination that’s both beautiful and terrifying with its buckets of blood and chopped off limbs.

An ensemble cast

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Daryl and Merle meet a variety of people as they trek across Georgia, and you can choose to take them along with you. You’re only limited by how many seats are in your car. Terminal Reality hasn’t shown what some of these folks look like yet, but it promises they have their own stories and personalities. Once they join you, you can send them out on fetch quests for ammo, fuel, or other supplies.

The Walking Dead: The Game
A huge part of Telltale’s choice-driven narrative is defining Lee’s relationship to the other survivors in his group. Each of these men, women, and children have distinct personalities, ideas, and motives, which often leads to conflict. As Lee, you can attempt to act neutral and try to compromise with everyone, but eventually characters will notice and pressure you to pick a side.

You also face some tough god-like decisions of who lives and who dies. Whoever comes out at the end of those harrowing situations will continue with you with his unique dialogue and perspective on what’s happening in the story. But as you play, you soon find out that one character’s safety is never a sure thing.

Branching storyline

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
You have a choice of which towns you visit in Georgia, and some may contain survivors to recruit and missions to complete. Scenarios called Road Events randomly occur as you drive to and from these areas as well, leaving you exposed to even more walkers in the countryside or isolated locations. It’s currently unknown how much of an impact these choices and events will make on the overall storyline.

The Walking Dead: The Game
While the ending is more or less the same no matter what decisions you make, it’s the smaller details based on your choices that make your playthrough feel like your own personal journey with Lee and Clementine.

Children

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
When GamesBeat spoke with Glenn Gamble, the principal effects artist and senior combat designer on Survival Instinct, one of the things he talked about was the technology behind the walkers and how Terminal Reality has a dizzying number of heads, clothing items, and body types to differentiate them. But don’t expect any pint-sized zombies in your crosshairs as Gamble said it was a “conscious decision” to not include children in the game.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Without giving away major spoilers, you do meet a few walkers that were once kids — these instances serve as pivotal emotional scenes for certain characters. Killing them is optional as you can delegate that grim task to another person in your group.

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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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Daryl Dixon isn’t the most sympathetic guy you’ll ever meet. He’s got a short temper, is prone to violence, and doesn’t care much for other people besides himself and his racist older brother, Merle. Like it or not, these are the two main characters you’re stuck with in The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.

Set for release sometime in 2013, Survival Instinct (for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC) is a first-person survival game that serves as a prequel to season one of The Walking Dead TV show on AMC, based on Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic books. Actors Michael Rooker (Merle) and Norman Reedus (Daryl) reprise their onscreen roles in a tale that follows the two brothers during the early days of the zombie outbreak in the state of Georgia. They travel across different towns and cities to scavenge for supplies while meeting other survivors along the way.

Developer Terminal Reality certainly has its hands full as it tries to maintain the franchise’s phenomenal success across comics, games, and television shows. The show’s viewership has steadily increased with the airing of each season, with 10.5 million people tuning in to the midseason finale a few weeks ago. And Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead — an episodic adventure series that branches off from the comics — is a hit for fans and critics alike, winning multiple “Game of the Year” awards, including our own.

Focus on storytelling

“The first challenge of making the game is we didn’t want your standard first-person shooter because if you watch the show, even three walkers [what the characters call the undead] are dangerous,” Glenn Gamble, the principal effects artist and senior combat designer, told GamesBeat. “We didn’t want this typical running and gunning gameplay. We knew story was an important element. We want to flesh all that out.”

Terminal Reality is working with the AMC screenwriters to make sure that Survival Instinct “feels more like a story arc and less like an individual episode,” according to Gamble. For those who follow the show, this can have some very interesting implications when it comes to Daryl, who’s the only character you play. Fans know that the hotheaded Daryl from season one is vastly different from the cooler second-in-command Daryl we see in season three. Without offering anything too specific, Gamble said Terminal Reality is planting the “seeds” of that dramatic change with this prequel.

However, I didn’t find any hint of that during the hands-off 15 minute demo, which takes place about halfway through Survival Instinct. Daryl and Merle were looting supplies from a small town filled with walkers, and most of their dialogue consisted of ordering each other around or commenting on things they found.

“Never trust a dead body.”

While you’ll find guns and ammo, you don’t want to use them unless you have to as the walkers will immediately head toward the source of the gunshot. Instead, you want to rely on melee combat to finish off the undead quietly. Gamble used an axe as his primary weapon to split heads and a knife for special execution attacks. He managed to sneak up behind a walker, shoving the sharp blade through its jaw and out one of its eyes.

In addition to seeing or hearing you, walkers can smell you if you stay in any one place for too long. It only takes a handful of hits for one of them to kill you and much less if a few of them decide to join the feast. And if they get close enough to grab a hold of you, you have a small window of opportunity to push them off and run.

Perhaps the most dangerous members of the undead are the ones off the screen. Lurking in alleyways or behind doors, these walkers take advantage of your blind spots by launching surprise attacks. “The idea is to never give the player a chance to get really safe and comfortable where they’re at,” said Gamble.

Daryl’s characteristic weapon — his crossbow — was conspicuously absent from the demo. Gamble laughed when I asked him about it, saying they have something special in store for Daryl’s “Excalibur moment” later in the story.

It’s dangerous to go alone

As Daryl and Merle drive through Georgia, they come across different survivors (new characters who aren’t on the show), and you can choose to add them to your group — more than a dozen possible candidates with their own stories, strengths, and weaknesses. But it’s impossible to recruit them all at the same time since you’re limited by the number of seats in your current vehicle. You can also dismiss them to make more room.

These extra hands are pivotal in helping you find supplies. You can order them to search the level for stuff you might need like ammo, food (a shared resource among all members), and gas. Even if you don’t decide to take these people with you, some of them can reappear in later missions and help you out when you need it, but this depends on how you treated them in your first encounter.

And with others, you might never see them at all during your initial playthrough. You’ll have a choice of which towns and locales to visit on your map, and these places may or may not have a survivor to recruit. Randomly generated side missions called “road events” further endanger your group as you travel, leaving you exposed in the middle of nowhere. Two examples Gamble gave involved visiting a gas station if you’re running low on fuel or running into a pile of cars that are blocking the highway. You either have to push some of the cars away or drive around them, which uses up more of your gas.

No matter who you decide to bring with you, it doesn’t sound like these optional characters will have a significant impact — whether they’re alive or dead — on the story. That makes sense as the first season of the TV show has both Daryl and Merle cast their luck with a different group of survivors — the same people who eventually find series protagonist Rick Grimes.

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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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So, you’ve got a new tablet — now what? Most app stores make it easy for you to find popular apps, but plenty of impressive tablet apps still fly under the radar.

In my experience, the best apps take full advantage of what makes tablets unique: their gorgeous touch-enabled screens. A new computing design demands an entirely new way of thinking about user interfaces.

(Still need help choosing a tablet? Check out our tablet gift guide.)

If you’re new to tablets, you’ll likely find yourself adapting to touchscreen interfaces quickly (and wishing every screen was touch-enabled). But even if you’ve been following the tablet market closely from the beginning, new apps are always appearing that push the boundaries of design, functionality, and usability.

Comics by Comixology

Tablets are a comic reader’s dream come true, and from what I’ve seen, Comixology is the best app for building and reading a digital comic collection. It includes titles from Marvel, DC, Image, and plenty of independent labels, and since it’s cloud-based, you can access your collection on your smartphone as well. Comic fans will find a lot to like (I particularly enjoy zooming into intricate artwork). But it’s also the perfect way for newcomers to check out comics and graphics novels without being judged by your local comic book guy. 

Various prices for iPad or Android

Infinity Blade II

More than a year after it first appeared, Infinity Blade II remains one of the most graphically advanced games on the iPad. Infinity Blade II builds upon its dungeon-crawling predecessor with more enemies, weapons, and console-quality graphics. (And yes, it’s optimized for the Retina Display.) 

$7 for iPad

Flipboard

Flipboard has been a mainstay recommendation for tablet news junkies since it launched. Two years later, it remains one of the best news-reading apps thanks to its slick digital magazine-like interface and its constantly improving story engine. You may find yourself actually reading more news because Flipboard makes it all look so good. 

Free for iPad or Android

Google Chrome

Yes, Google Chrome. The best desktop web browser is also the best browser on smartphones and tablets. It’s ideal for heavy browser users because it offers the best interface for juggling multiple tabs on tablets, and it can sync with other devices (so bookmarks from your desktop version of Chrome show up on your tablet, and vice versa). Android users get the most out of this app since they’ll actually get to take advantage of its fast browsing engine. On the iPad, you’ll be able to use Chrome’s interface, but you’re stuck with Apple’s slower browsing engine. 

Free for iPad or Android 4.0 and above

Google Earth

Google Earth is a kick on desktops, but on your tablet it’s like a digital globe from the future. It’s a fun and educational app for kids, but even adults will enjoy zooming into nearby and far-off places. This app literally puts the world at your fingertips.

Free for iPad or Android

Panna

A gorgeous cooking magazine for the iPad, Panna offers recipes from master chefs with simple instructions. Thanks to high-quality preparation videos, it’s like diving into your favorite Food Network show. While Panna is helpful for preparation, it’s also a fun app to browse as you’re looking for inspiration for your next party or just for something different to make for dinner. 

$5 per issue or $15 per year for iPad

Showyou

Chances are good that you’ll end up spending more time staring at your tablet than your TV, so you’ll want a simple way to explore the endless world of online video. Showyou collects the videos shared by your friends on social networks, and it also highlights other videos that may interest you. With its most recent update, ShowYou lets you easily sit back and watch online video as easily as you do TV.

Free for iPad or Kindle Fire (not other Android tablets)

StumbleUpon

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that StumbleUpon adapts itself well to tablets. It has risen to popularity as a fun and simple way to find new content online on the desktop. By simply clicking a button, you’re instantly rewarded with a new, interesting thing to look at or read. On a tablet, where you’re entirely focused on a single app at a time, StumbleUpon’s ingenious mechanic is downright addictive.

Free for iPad or Kindle Fire (not other Android tablets)

Xbox Smartglass

If you have an Xbox 360, this app is a must-have. It works as a “second screen” experience for Microsoft’s console, allowing you to easily search for content as well as interact with media playing on the Xbox 360. And, of course, you’ll also be able to tap into Xbox Live and see what your friends are up to. It’s surprising how much a simple app can make a seven-year-old console seem fresh and new.

Free for iPad, Android (not optimized for Android tablets), Windows 8 and RT

The Walking Dead: The Game

What starts out as a traditional adventure game quickly turns into the most memorable game experience of the year. I’d recommend Telltale’s The Walking Dead on any platform, but if you have an iPad, it’s an even more intimate experience. Structured like a five-episode TV series, the game offers a bit of action, but really, it’s all about the tension and forcing you to make some of the most difficult moral decisions of your gaming life. And as you face off against the hordes of the undead, just remember, it’s all for Clementine.

$5 per episode or $20 for the whole season for iPad

We thought we were so smart back in January with our release lists and RSS feeds. We really believed we knew what was going to happen this year. “I can’t wait to play BioShock Infinite when it releases in 2012!” we said. We were so naïve back then. It doesn’t matter how closely you follow the news or how often you refresh your browser; some companies can still manage to catch the gaming public completely unaware.

Here are some of our picks for the biggest surprises of 2012.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Contributor Rus McLaughlin

I hated the first Black Ops. Hated. It. I even went back and replayed parts of it just to refresh every design misstep and weak idea in my mind before its sequel arrived. You’d better believe that I’d sharpened all my knives in anticipation of carving up Black Ops II like a particularly ugly turkey who killed my dog. And then it turned out good … like, really good.

It’s as if developer Treyarch, a company that consistently churned out the worst entries in the franchise for years, suddenly ditched their old playbook and started fresh. The flow and encounters hit a sweet spot that I haven’t felt from the series since the first Modern Warfare, which came out in 2007. The branching storylines — often based on your in-game performance rather than flat yes/no answers — lock in unless you replay the entire mission … and every mission after it.

Very nice. Sure, the real-time strategy chapters don’t hold up as RTS games, and it’s still the bro-tastic Michael Bay of video games, but I can’t deny that I’m actually excited about Call of Duty again right when COD fatigue had fully set in. Can Activision deliver at this level every year? I’m still skeptical, but at least now I know that the possibility exists.

Rediscovering adventure games

Contributing editor Stephanie Carmichael

This was a momentous year for point-and-click adventure games, and Kickstarter played a huge role in that. Fans donated more than $3.3 million to Double Fine Adventure, making it one of the most successful video game campaigns on the crowdfunding service, let alone one of the greatest outpourings for the genre to date. Luminary Jane Jensen raised enough money for her Pinkerton Road Studio and the upcoming adventure game Moebius. And Telltale Games launched one of the hottest titles of 2012 with The Walking Dead. Those are only a few of the promising or excellent titles that found an audience in the past dozen months. Who said adventure games were dead?

Street Fighter X Mega Man

Contributor Samir Torres

Street Fighter and Mega Man turned 25 years old in 2012, and that calls for a celebration. Street Fighter X Mega Man is a free, PC-only, old-fashioned Mega Man adventure game in which you battle Street Fighter characters instead of Robot Masters. When you beat them, you acquire their abilities. It came out on December 17.

The most interesting part is that Capcom is working with die-hard Mega Man fans to make the title — fans whom the developer has neglected in recent years with the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe and the Blue Bomber’s omission in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The PlayStation Vita

Intern Giancarlo Valdes

Though I only bought the Vita a few weeks ago, I honestly think it’s the best handheld I’ve ever owned — with its gorgeous screen and sleek hardware design, it’s also the prettiest. Games such as Gravity Rush, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack are great — even when I’m not commuting and just playing on the couch at home. The proprietary memory cards are still ridiculously expensive, and game-wise, the lineup doesn’t look too bright in 2013, but for now, I’m happy with just catching up with all the gems that came out this year.

Guild Wars 2

Contributor Rob LeFebvre

I quit playing World of Warcraft a few years ago because, meh, I thought the third-person fantasy massively multiplayer online genre was over, and I was tired of it. After messing about with Star Wars: The Old Republic and Eve Online, I figured that Guild Wars 2 would just be another WOW clone. Instead, it’s much more interesting and compelling to play, has many different ways to progress in the game, and made me an MMO player yet again. Not having a monthly subscription is a big factor as well.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane

Copy editor Jason Wilson

I hadn’t realized how much I had missed Master of Magic, the fantasy equivalent of Civilization from the 1990s. I didn’t realize that I had been yearning for a game like this until I encountered Warlock: Master of the Arcane. It isn’t as deep as Civilization — the focus is more on combat than in Sid Meier’s legendary turn-based strategy series — but in some ways, it’s more fun. The factions each have their own personality (I love the voices of the goblin units or the flying galleons of the Undead), and Warlock’s A.I. actually knows how to play its game. If you enjoy turn-based strategy that focuses more on combat than on expansion and empire-building — and dig fantasy — check it out.

Guild Wars 2

Intern Mike Minotti

I’m one of those MMO players. You know, the kind who plays World of Warcraft casually, sometimes tries something new, but always returns to the welcoming arms of Azeroth. I never thought I would find an MMO that I would genuinely like better than WOW, but Guild Wars 2 hooked me with its beautiful world and innovative quest systems.

The Phantom Pain/Metal Gear Solid connection

Editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Every year, the best part of Spike’s Video Game Awards — meaning the good part of Spike’s Video Game Awards — is all the world-premiere trailers for upcoming titles. 2012′s show was no different, and the announcement trailer for developer Moby Dick Studios’ The Phantom Pain was the highlight of the evening.

Even more interesting is the fan-driven speculation that the title is secretly the next installment in Konami’s Metal Gear franchise. The evidence is circumstantial at best, but if you think back on it, this is exactly the sort of thing that we’d expect from the stealth action series.

Dragon’s Dogma

Contributing editor Rob Savillo

Capcom’s underrated action-adventure caught me completely by surprise. I’d heard nothing about it until a few weeks before release when then-Bitmob staff writer (now at PC Gamer) Omri Petitte published his “A Series of Epic Events” preview. Instantly, I saw Monster Hunter- and Dark Souls-style gameplay dancing in my head, and I wasn’t too far off once I got my hands on the disc.

Here’s a game that makes nighttime feel dangerous and isolating, not merely a moonlight-blue hued palette swap. Here’s a game with a detailed, skill-based combat model that encourages creative solutions. Here’s a game that makes exploration feel grand and of consequence such that smart preparation becomes a necessity. Here’s a game that blends asynchronous multiplayer into an experience that’s not turn-based or on a phone. Here’s a game that doesn’t waste your time with bland, boring, and ultimately useless dialogue from cardboard non-player characters. Here’s a game that’s not afraid to challenge modern design conventions and show them to be a poor way forward for the medium.

The PlayStation Vita

Intern Jasmine Rea

I was all prepared to dislike the Vita based on how woefully under-supported it was at launch and Sony’s silly choice to make a 3G-enabled model. Since I really wanted to review Persona 4 Golden, I knew I’d buy one at some point, and boy was I shocked by how much I loved it. The screen is mesmerizing, and the increased size and heft fixed all the problems that I had with the PlayStation Portable’s shape. Most of all, I didn’t mind forking over money for digital versions of PSP games that I already own. They just look so much better on that pretty screen. The Vita deserves more support, and if you like Japanese role-playing games, you’re sure to adore this flashy little handheld. Just don’t buy into the touch panel gimmicks, and I think you’ll love it, too.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Intern Evan Killham

Alan Wake, developer Remedy Entertainment’s Stephen King/Twin Peaks-fusion thriller with a dash of Lovecraft, was one of my favorite games of 2010. I was a little disappointed that the follow-up, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, was a bite-sized Xbox Live Arcade downloadable title, but I checked it out anyway because, hey, more Alan Wake. And you know what? It is glorious.

Remedy drops the first game’s moody tension in favor of a more action-based, grindhouse dynamic, and while such a drastic shift in tone might be the worst thing that could happen to a franchise, somehow it just works for Alan Wake. It could be because this is a series explicitly about storytelling and creativity, and as such, it can include any genre Remedy feels like throwing in there. And seemingly as a test of this hypothesis, American Nightmare is a time-travel story.

The game has three levels, and you play through them three times. You could assume that this is a clever way to reuse assets and keep the game XBLA-sized, and you would be right, but on each time through, the characters around Alan remember bits of information about their experiences in the previous loop. For example, one time through, Alan has to go out to a character’s car to retrieve an item; the next time around, she remembers that someone will need that object and has it with her when you first (second?) meet, saving you the dangerous trip outside.

It’s really clever storytelling that keeps the repetition from feeling, well, repetitive, and it also serves as a fascinating commentary on game mechanics in general. What are checkpoint restarts, after all, but a form of time travel?

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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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The Walking Dead
Released: July
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Telltale Games

Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead is groundbreaking in more than one way. An episodic adventure game in the classic style, today? Turns out, it’s a winner due to brilliant storytelling, solid controls, and, well, zombies. It’s based on the award-winning The Walking Dead comic book and television series, and by making this into a video game, it allowed for the introduction a new lead and set of supporting characters — a brilliant move. This enabled its authors to explore the same themes and ideas as the TV show and the comic book, but with a different emotional tone. Lee Everett and his young charge, Clementine, fill the emotional heart of the story in a way that Rick and his wife never quite do.

Curiosity
Released: November
Platforms: iOS
Developer: 22cans

The first release from Peter Molyneaux and 22cans is an experiment in massively multiplayer gaming with a simple yet compelling premise: “What’s in the center of the cube?” Like a huge virtual Tootsie Pop, the curiosity cube has layers upon layers of colored squares. You simply tap squares to remove them from the top layer of the world-sized cube — you and half a million players others using their iOS devices. Curiosity distills the very essence of its namesake, with teasing lines of prose scrolling across layers, various pictures buried in the skin of each cube layer, and some random coin earning mechanics. All of this seems to add up to one very innovative tapping experience that’s of a less game and more of a participatory experience.

Draw Something
Released: February
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: OMGPOP, Inc.
Draw Something was Zynga’s big gamble. Developed by indie team OMGPOP, Draw Something went viral and became as well known as Words With Friends or even Angry Birds. Why did this game become so popular? On the face of it, it’s a simple concept: This is nothing more than multiplayer Pictionary. Get a word and draw a picture that a friend attempts to guess. If they choose the correct word, you both get more points. Playing Draw Something is a lot more compelling, however. Artistic individuals challenge themselves to illustrate more and more abstract words with more and more elaborate, even painterly, images. Unfortunately, the Draw Something bubble burst soon after Zynga spent an obscene amount of money to acquire it. Still, the game continues to have a loyal following, with folks spending real money to buy new colors, word lists, and the like.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition
Released: December
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Overhaul Games
One of the pillars of RPG gaming from BioWare recently showed up on iOS, and it still made a huge splash with retro enthusiasts and hardcore RPG fans alike. While the enhancements include new playable characters with new backstories and touch-appropriate controls, this is essentially the same game as came out for PC 14 years ago. The game uses Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, making it as hardcore and difficult as the original PC game. While RPG games continue to streamline and simplify to interest new players, this 1998 gem remains as true to the form as ever, which is a powerful draw.

The World Ends With You
Released: August
Developer: Square Enix
The World Ends With You made me sit up and take notice when it first released in North America in 2008. The J-Pop flavor of the score; the quirky angst of protagonist Neku and his spunky, optimistic partners, Shiki, Joshua, and Beat; the fun mechanics of searching for and then fighting demons; the overarching storyline of The Game and its Reapers — this is not a typical handheld game. When it came to iOS this year, the loss of the dual-screen combat mechanic proved to have less of an impact than I feared. It’s still a ton of fun to play, with an irreverent wit and unique gameplay mechanics I’ve not seen anywhere else.

Bastion
Released: August
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Supergiant Games
Supergiant Games had a monster hit on its hands with Bastion, one of the best downloadable console games of the last several years. That it’s now available on an iPad or iPhone for five bucks is a revelation. Players follow The Kid through a dying world that somehow re-assembles itself ahead of the main character. The soundtrack is an oddly joyous combination of future-Western loops, guitar work, and haunting vocals — be sure to get the soundtrack if nothing else. The narration makes it all come together, as it tells its simple but compelling story about saving the world, one hammered monster at a time. It works exceedingly well on the touchscreen, too.

Plague Inc.
Released: May
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Ndemic Creations
You’d think that a game featuring the travel paths of a viral plague would be dead boring, but Ndemic Creations proves that a game that’s essentially a spreadsheet simulation of a deadly viral plague across the globe is compelling entertainment. It has no fancy 3D graphics, cutscenes, or voice work, just a map of the world, several choices about how to best spread the disease most effectively (rats? air travel? mosquitos?), and a well-built simulation of how the world responds to your pandemic infection. It’s a chilling and realistic look at how disease can and does spread from place to place.

Angry Birds Star Wars
Released: November
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Rovio Entertainment
Rovio somehow put two of the strongest intellectual properties together into one incredibly lust-worthy combination. Star Wars plus Angry Birds seems like an odd match, but it hit number one in the iTunes app charts within the first two and a half hours of release. It likely sold a huge number of copies via the Google Play store as well: Who can resist Angry Birds with lightsabers and officially sanctioned Star Wars sound effects? No one, that’s who.

Letterpress
Released: October
Platforms: iOS
Developer: atebits
Letterpress is like Boggle with friends with a particularly nasty twist: When you tap out words using the letters provided in the grid, they turn blue, taking points and potential victory from your opponent, chosen at random or from your Game Center friends list. The longer the word, the more points you get, and the less your opponent can rack up. It’s Othello or Go with letters and words, all built with care and a clean, modern design aesthetic.

Fieldrunners 2
Released: July
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Subatomic Studios
Tower defense games are all over the various mobile platforms, perhaps more than any other type of game. The opportunity for deep strategy exists with the tower defense genre, as does quick, pick-up-and-play instant gratification. Fieldrunners 2 is the apogee of tower defense games, as it boasts a variety of sub-genres, like open fields, fixed path, and survival wave modes. It has plenty of towers for you to buy and upgrade, more enemy types, and three levels of difficulty to try your patience and skill.

Infinity Blade II
Released: November 2011
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Chair Entertainment Group
Infinity Blade II came out in November of 2011, so it just missed our top iOS games post last year. Let’s rectify that now. This is a showcase title on any mobile device, though it does only exist on iOS at this point.  Infinity Blade II is a must-own title for iPad an iPhone gamers wanting to see the cutting edge of mobile gaming and visual design, due to the combination of console-level graphical quality and surprisingly tactile combat. It makes good on the promise of the first title, adding more story, more giant beasts to slay, and a continually satisfying challenge throughout.

Horn
Released: August
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Phosphor Games
Horn surprises with a well-developed fantasy world, solid controls, and a quirky sense of humor that permeates across encounters, levels, and character design. Horn is a delight to play; it’s also farther away from Zynga’s core casual business as I thought was even possible. The platforming is well done, the three-dimensional environments are fun to explore and play through, and the enemies are a striking mix of science and magic.

Super Hexagon
Released: August
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Terry Cavanagh
Those who like punishing, tough retro arcade games are bound to thrill to Super Hexagon, developed by indie darling Terry Cavanagh. The point is to rotate your triangle-shaped avatar around a pulsating, spinning, chip-tune spewing hexagon, avoiding the walls that close in on the center in wave after endless wave. Survival is the point of Super Hexagon, moving minimally and staying one step ahead of things as they spin, flash, and pound like a bad trip at a rave.

Waking Mars
Released: February
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Tiger Style Games
Waking Mars takes you on a trip to the red planet to explore, trapping you underneath the surface. You’ll need to navigate a maze-like system of caves, teeming with varieties of plant life that you’ll need to harness to survive, and, eventually, terraform Mars with. If you liked Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, you’ll enjoy Waking Mars for the story, the gorgeous artwork, and a compelling science fictional storyline set on one of our favorite planets to dream about.

Rayman Jungle Run
Released: September
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Ubisoft
The smartest thing Ubisoft could have done with its popular Rayman franchise was to release it to iOS and Android, not as a copycat game full of poorly translated controls schemes, but as a mobile title built specifically for the platform’s touch-based control systems. Rayman Jungle Run is an endless runner, like Canabalt or Jetpack Joyride, but it trades on the glorious cel-shaded illustration, cartoony animation, and delightful ukulele-infused soundtrack that made the console version of Rayman: Origins such fun to play. That joy translates well to the mobile version of Rayman as you jump, swing, and soar across several well designed levels with smooth touch controls.

What do I like most about video games? They always strive to do more, to be better.

Games we judged as the best of the best a few years ago might seem dated now. Some feature such tight, timeless designs that they do hold up over the long term, but these fall into a very small category. Otherwise, and in every way, this is the industry status quo: Nearly every game competes not only to outdo past iterations but to also completely dwarf every other title on the market. They don’t always succeed. But one way or another, gamers always benefit from the effort.

The industry moves forward, always forward. So we look back to applaud the new directions it took in 2012 and how they might influence what comes next.

Integrating the GamePad

Most Wii U launch titles relegate the GamePad’s spectacular functionality to stolid maps or inventory screens. Ubisoft’s ZombiU does that, too, but in ways that feed directly into — and significantly enhance — its gameplay. Your best tool to survive the undead hordes is the “Prepper Pad” — in fact, the GamePad itself re-created in the game. It scans and tags items, enemies, and exits, but narrowing your attention to the pad’s small screen leaves you vulnerable to attack and permanent character death. Picking through your items makes you feel completely exposed. When a survival-horror game makes inventory management into a completely nerve-wracking experience, you know it’s smarter than the average bear.

Honestly, I haven’t seen game controls so deeply symbiotic with their game since Dance Dance Revolution. ZombiU simply couldn’t exist on a different system, and it’s a beacon to other developers on how to take full advantage of Nintendo’s new hardware.

Silent storytelling

Minimalism isn’t exactly a new thing in games — see N+ and Limbo for details — but minimalism with depth of design and storytelling threads a fine needle with mountaineering rope. Journey, from Jenova Chen and thatgamecompany, did just that, building an epic story without any words, written or spoken. It didn’t need any, either. A deft combination of imagery, music, and interaction made us feel the joy of discovery, the struggle against adversity, the elation of flight. Journey created great complexity out of relative simplicity.

Not everybody stripped down that far, but more than a few games this year dialed back the interactivity to dial up a player’s personal interaction. “Don’t look or it takes you” set the tone for Slender in just six terrifying words. Antichamber’s tests only said enough to make you question every reflex you’ve learned as a gamer. Dear Esther gave you an island and a mystery, but nothing to jump over, no puzzles to solve, or even any items to touch. Like Journey, those approaches all left the explanations open to interpretation … effectively turning the stories themselves into interactive features. Those journeys became our journeys, full of sweeping emotions and buoyed by the indomitable urge to press onward.

Deconstructing our heroes

Sure, games offer a huge slice of power fantasy with a side of personal awesomeness, but I can’t remember ever playing so many out-of-their-depth characters as I did this year. We’ve never been more fragile. We played as children in Unfinished Swan and Papo y Yo. Postapocalyptic survivors in games like I Am Alive, ZombiU, and The Walking Dead always felt like they were mere inches away from disaster. A world of death quickly unraveled protagonists in Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops: The Line.

But that’s nothing compared to what we did to a lot of our old friends. Commander Shepard suffered from survivor’s guilt all through Mass Effect 3. Max Payne’s self-loathing never ran out of downward spirals to charge through (in slo-mo, of course) until he finally reached for the light again. Even the implacable, emotionless masks of Hitman’s Agent 47 and Halo 4′s Master Chief took serious hits as each found something deeply personal to fight for … fights that frequently came with devastating turns. When the Master Chief suddenly refuses a direct order, it’s time to re-evaluate everything he is.

Gamers have become an older, more sophisticated audience. The industry’s responded by adding vulnerability and depth to the people we play as, making us more sympathetic to their goals and more invested in their safety. And with games like The Last of Us and the Tomb Raider reboot scheduled to pound us mercilessly in 2013, you can expect this trend to extend well into the future.

Adventure games are still relevant

I was done with point-and-click adventure games back in the ’90s. I’m back on them now. The team at Telltale Games didn’t just keep the flame alive with The Walking Dead, their superlative five-part series based on Robert Kirkland’s graphic novel (and its television counterpart) … they brought modern game designs into what many considered an outdated genre.

And they did it with an elegantly simple device: the quick-time event. Turns out the same gameplay cliché that annoys me in God of War (and its many clones) instantly turns the usually static point-and-click exercise into a tense, action-packed struggle for survival. It’s panic-inducing to suddenly find yourself zeroing a shaky cursor on a shambling zombie before it takes a chunk out of protagonist Lee or, even more upsetting, to rescue darling Clementine, his young charge, from a grisly fate. That lends real danger to the rest of the story — survival feels tenuous indeed — and the split-second decisions you must make become even more agonizing.

I actually had to step away from The Walking Dead for a while after its devastating third episode. No other game this year did that to me. That little tick-tick-tick countdown behind every choice made Telltale’s simple point-and-click drama as intense … no, more intense … than any high-octane shooter or jump-scare horror game. More, please.

Games are growing up (maybe)

Two years ago, a trailer showing callous killer Agent 47 eliminating a squad of PVC-clad gun nuns wouldn’t have raised much more than a few eyebrows. Hey, we’re the medium where all the ladies in Dead or Alive get a dedicated physics engine for the boob-jiggle. It’s just a game, after all, so who cares?

Except that’s an argument you can make when you’re 12. The average age in the gaming community hovers in the mid-30s.

2012 saw a heightened awareness of and direct confrontation against the sexism that’s long been a part of this industry’s DNA, both in and out of the games themselves. Halo 4′s multiplayer shipped with a zero-tolerance policy toward racist or sexist language — fittingly announced by executive producer Kiki Wolfkill and Microsoft executive Bonnie Ross — and lifetime Xbox Live bans for violators. Gearbox Software tried to include a special character class in Borderlands 2 for less-experienced players before lead designer John Hemmingway self-sabotaged by calling it “girlfriend mode.” Despite that gaffe, it still presented a serious attempt at inclusiveness … which is the opposite of sexism.

We’ve got a long way to go, baby. But at last it seems like we’re moving in the right direction.

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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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Indie games are more than inexpensive alternatives to this year’s Assassin’s Creed and Halo; they’re mouthpieces for serious issues, bold experiments in game design, and canvases for discovering new artistic possibilities.

We sorted through 2012′s releases and chose the 15 strongest and most influential titles, in no particular order. Feel free to let us know which ones we missed in the comments. Or tell us we’re completely nuts. Whatever makes you as happy as these games made us.

Fez

Developer: Polytron Corporation
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
Release Date: April 13, 2012

We might as well get the elephant out of the room first: Fez is a smart and challenging puzzle-platformer with bad associations. Creator Phil Fish lashed out against gamers and Japanese developers in the spring, and he won few people over with his personality. Luckily, Fez’s charming style and engaging gameplay are as memorable as his antics, only better.

Fez puts a tiny, two-dimensional hero named Gomez in a world that you can rotate and explore three-dimensionally. The complexity of the space Gomez inhabits is what leads to the game’s many brainteasers, but the peaceful visuals and soundtrack encourage impatient players to slow down and reflect.

Although widely praised, Fez is the center of a big controversy — and host to criticism — because of the game’s glitches and the perhaps inadequate steps that Polytron and Microsoft took to fix them. Should we hold developers and publishers responsible when they fail to issue patches that improve the experience for everyone? Do we have the right to boast that Western games and development are superior to that of another country, especially one that’s contributed so much to the medium? Polytron delivered one of the best indie games of the year, but it also gave the industry something much more valuable: an attitude adjustment. Whether that’s made us better or worse is hard to say. The Japanese, at least, have made the most of the criticism — warranted or not.

Spelunky

Developer: Mossmouth
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360
Release Date: July 4, 2012

Before you yell that Spelunky is from 2009, take a look at the screenshot above. Or better yet, fire up your Xbox 360 and behold the differences. Spelunky on Xbox Live Arcade is a completely new model, not only graphically improved compared to its PC counterpart but also with more content. The action-platformer now has 1-to-4 player co-op and deathmatch, new music and zones, and additional enemies and traps.

The appeal remains the same: Explore and survive. Sometimes making it to the next area requires a careful balance of risk and reward, such as a decision to attack the shopkeeper and incite violence or leave the princess safely behind, for example. Sometimes it comes down to plain luck. And part of it depends on whether your friends are reliable or whether they’re all too happy to let you suffer.

Spelunky’s recipe is one of the most irresistible in game design. The promise of randomized adventure and secrets keeps players from setting down their controllers even though they’ve died countless times (and will many more). It’s a game that you’ll love to hate and an excellent case study of how to serve both PC and console crowds without losing what makes the experience exciting and original.

The Walking Dead: Episodes 1-5

Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS
Release Dates: April 24, 2012 through November 21, 2012

With how big Robert Kirkman’s zombie series The Walking Dead has become — leaping from comics, where it all started, to television and now video games — it’s easy to forget that so much of its success is in the hands of independent creators and developers.

Telltale Games has stirred the emotions of players for nearly a year, fascinating them with a surprisingly well-handled story and, better yet, bringing attention back to the point-and-click adventure genre. All five episodes have set a new standard for interactive storytelling. And the game could give the TV show a few pointers about how to create compelling character performances.

The Walking Dead is also a huge success for a relatively small independent company with a modest portfolio of games, including Sam & Max and Wallace & Gromit. Not all of them have been winners, like Jurassic Park: The Game. But this breakaway hit foretells good tidings for Telltale in the new year.

Retro/Grade

Developer: 24 Caret Games
Publisher: 24 Caret Games
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release Date: August 21, 2012

You could learn a lot from your mistakes if only you could rewind time.

That’s the challenge of rhythm-space game Retro/Grade, where you control a spaceship pilot bobbing his head to the music as you play events in reverse. You’ll need to pay attention to the beat as much as the colorful lasers streaking across your screen, which you “collect” so that when the action moves in real time again, you can dominate the battle. Each burst of energy within these lanes of light is your own ship fire, so when you suck up one of these, you’re also shooting it against the enemy in the present flow of time. You can also fast-forward using your rocket’s fuel to give yourself extra seconds to fix your mistakes.

It’s a clever side-scroller and twist on the shooter and music genres, and equally as engaging is Skyler McGlothlin’s (electronica music artist Nautilis) soundtrack and the zero-gravity, free-flying motions of the course you chart. Just keep an eye on the background as you spin and rotate your way through the awesome regions of space. It’s pretty cool.

The Unfinished Swan

Developer: Giant Sparrow
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release Date: October 23, 2012

The Unfinished Swan is an abstract tale of loss and our need for closure. You play as Monroe, an orphan boy whose mother dies and leaves him one of her paintings, an illustration of a swan. When the bird escapes its picture, Monroe follows its orange footsteps through a world that you create one glob of paint at a time.

It’s a perpetual visual wonder, but as you progress, the game evolves and redefines the way you interact with it. What begins as paint becomes water, and so on. Discovering the unknown is the source of real magic here, not merely the acts themselves, and the things you find inspire your imagination as though you had stepped into a fairytale.

The Unfinished Swan’s fragmented images and themes might feel incomplete to some — almost like you’re touring Monroe’s mother’s unfinished paintings come to life. But as a whole, it’s one of the most original and artistic games of the year.

Click through for our next five picks.

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, THQ files for bankruptcy, gaming video giant Machinima lays off 10 percent of its staff, and we crown The Walking Dead as our 2012 Game of the Year.

You’ll also find reviews for Black Knight Sword, Mass Effect 3: Omega, and Middle Manager of Justice.

News:
The DeanBeat: The Newtown shooting will turn up the heat on video game violence — but will it make us think?
DayZ lead designer considered leaving the project
This week in the Nintendo Download: Mario, Wario, and Alex Trebek
Turn your friends into Pokémon in the next Mystery Dungeon game on 3DS
Writer McComb isn’t worried about the lack of the Planescape license for the new Torment game
Valve gives Plantronics the rights to officially brand headsets with Aperture Laboratories and Mann Co. logos
Visualizing a tough year for the retail core game industry
Rabbit pulls reimagined video chat out of its hat
THQ’s bankruptcy filing reveals new games
THQ files for bankruptcy, assets sold to investor Clearlake for $60M
Valve pulls The War Z from Steam over fan backlash, offers refunds
Nintendo’s TVii available tomorrow, but it won’t be fully functional
MeritShare finds a way to gamify employee recognition (exclusive)
Green Throttle Games launches developer program as part of play to take over living room gaming
Assassin’s Creed III glitches and issues addressed in massive patch (full details)
Dartmouth professor names Zynga’s Mark Pincus one of the worst CEOs of 2012
Get ready for great games on a thin laptop as AMD preps new mobile graphics chips
Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic
Nvidia’s next Tegra 4 processor may come with 72 graphics cores
Minecraft documentary free for Xbox Live Gold subscribers this weekend
Online gaming firm Aeria Games merges with Japan’s Gamepot
The spirit of BattleBots lives on in a new robot-building game
Arktos Entertainment acquires majority stake in game studio Hammerpoint Interactive (exclusive)
Why Google predicts Microsoft’s next game console will beat Sony’s
Developer id Software releases Rage add-on next week
Game videos giant Machinima lays off 10 percent of staff
NRA blames video games for mass murders

Mobile News:
Kabam scores big with highest-grossing game on App Store for 2012
Apple freezes the App Store in advance of the holiday app-downloading bonanza
Jordan Mechner’s Karateka remake returns to Apple (iOS) devices today
Mochi Media says 86 percent of Flash game developers are expanding into mobile (exclusive)
MindSnacks’ new iPad games help you learn languages, pass the SAT
After 6M paid downloads, mobile hit Pocket God wraps up with its final, apocalyptic update
Kamcord is helping users record 7 mobile-game videos every second
With more than 20M downloads, Battle Bears mobile game hits San Francisco’s billboards
Plain Vanilla releases its multiplayer video game quiz for iOS
MediaBrix’s responsive design ensures in-game ads will always look right (exclusive)
SGN launches its MasterKey tool for making cross-platform social and mobile games
Gamevil surpasses 200M game downloads on smartphones
Exclusive: Go Ninja developer brings Shaquille O’Neal back to video games

Best of 2012:
GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year: The Walking Dead
The best indie games of 2012
The best games of 2012 (GamesBeat staff picks)
The game industry’s 2012 holiday cards

Interviews:
Heroes of Newerth 3.0 adds bots, hopes to teach new players (interview)
Crytek’s chief: Nothing will beat Crysis 3′s graphics for at least two years (interview)

Previews:
Hawken’s open beta shows a thoughtfully designed mech combat game (preview)
Insomaniac’s Fuse lets you lead a team of four badass agents (preview)
Toki Tori 2′s simple mechanics reward your curiosity (hands-on preview)
Zen Pinball 2 on Nintendo’s eShop gives you a choice of dozens of pinball tables (preview)
The 3DS library gets a little weirder with these quirky eShop games (preview)

Reviews:
Marvel Heroes needs more humanity, more warmth, and more MMO
Black Knight Sword’s punishing difficulty requires more luck than skill to overcome (review)
Middle Manager of Justice is all business, no gameplay (review)
Mass Effect 3: Omega is explosive, nostalgic, and somewhat pointless (review)

Pieces of Flair: 
What sales managers can learn from the four types of online gamers
Solving a Wii mystery: The fate of the awesome toy WeeWaa
Exploring why some players are unable to initiate Halo 4′s single-player campaign
A history of bodies: Video game violence and the player
Love your free players to unlock the full potential of free-to-play games
What are your holiday gaming traditions?
Justin Bieber, Minecraft’s Creeper, and other cameos in modern games (gallery)

The Walking Dead (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Mac, and iOS devices) is a classic point-and-click adventure game, its simple puzzles interspersed with light action sequences, quick-time events, and tension-filled decision-making. But it’s the story, not the gameplay, that makes it so compelling. At its core is the relationship between the hero, Lee Everett, and Clementine, an 8-year-old girl he befriends while seeking refuge from zombies in the Georgia suburbs. Over the course of five episodes, the game tells a grim tale of survival and morality, but none of it would have been nearly as effective if Telltale hadn’t done such a wonderful job in creating a cast of believable, relatable characters.

Children are often difficult to portray in video games or other types of entertainment media, but Telltale nails it. Clementine is both vulnerable and courageous. She’s innocent but not cloying. The game’s writers could’ve easily turned her into an annoying albatross, a character in need of protection and little else (see: the television show’s Season Two Carl). Instead, she’s a capable sidekick (see: Season Three Carl) and moral compass. Years from now, developers and critics alike will point to Clementine as an example of how to do a child character right.

Many of the game’s adult survivors are just as well-rounded and interesting to interact with, which makes it all the more gut-wrenching when you lose one. Telltale pulls no punches, offing its main cast in shocking and gruesome fashion. I lost track of the number of times such a moment made me gasp out loud, curse at the screen, or even cry. And judging from comments made around the Internet, I’m not the only one. It’s rare for a game to evoke such a visceral reaction in players.

The Walking Dead is by no means a perfect game. The puzzles are a little too simple at times, and the game suffers from some nasty bugs and framerate issues. But what it lacks in technical polish it more than makes up for in emotional, stress-inducing storytelling. For years, people have wondered why video game narratives don’t seem to have the same maturity and depth as films. While The Walking Dead has little in common with the latest Oscar contenders, it’s proof that we, as gamers, are ready for more than bombastic summer blockbusters. We’re ready for games that push the boundaries of storytelling — ones that move us and make us think. Many triple-A publishers have attempted it, but to see an indie studio accomplish it in a $25 downloadable episodic title is laudable. And that’s why The Walking Dead is GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year.

Read our The Walking Dead reviews

Episode  1: A New Day review

Episode  2: Starved for Help review

Episode  3: Long Road Ahead review

Episode  4: Around Every Corner review

Episode 5: No Time Left

GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year Runners-Up

• XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Xbox 360, PC)
• Journey (PSN)
• Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• Far Cry 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
• Dishonored (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

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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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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Epic Games president Michael Capps retired, Call of Duty: Black Ops II earned $1 billion in 15 days, Irrational Games pushed BioShock Infinite’s release date again, and Zynga filed to make real-money gambling games in Nevada.

You’ll also find reviews for Far Cry 3,  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Writer Rumble as well as previews for Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

News:

• The DeanBeat: Expert advice on staying alive in Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer
• Army of TWO: The Devil’s Cartel makes the Mexican drug wars seem glitchy
• What do game investors think about Kickstarter?
• Irrational Games pushes back BioShock Infinite release date
• PMC and Machinima will tout this year’s DICE Summit video game awards show
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II beats Halo 4 in NPD’s dismal November game sales list
• These missing Tomb Raider games could be entombed for good
• Dishonored’s first downloadable add-on pack is all about challenging your skills
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Lego Lord of the Rings, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and New Super Mario Bros. 2
• Peanut Labs extends its self-serve platform for creating market surveys (exclusive)
• God of War: Ascension multiplayer finds a sweet spot between shooters and fighters
• With ex-Zynga developer carrying the flag, Kixeye invades Canada
• Zynga files for right to make real-money gambling games in Nevada
• Assassin’s Creed III’s first add-on pack is erasing player progress
• The Four Bikers of the Apocalypse usher in the second add-on pack for Trials Evolution
• Pikmin 3 slips out of Wii U ‘launch window,’ will debut in spring
• Fire Emblem Awakening out on 3DS in North America in early February
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II hits $1B in sales in 15 days
• Bunchball shows off the ‘rock stars’ of gamification
• ‘Toxic’ League of Legends player responds to his 1-year ban
• Zynga’s new theme park game CoasterVille goes live today
• Facebook announces top games of 2012: SongPop music trivia game comes out on top
• Social media surfaces layoffs at game companies NCSoft and Petroglyph
• A Wii U update is available now — it should improve system stability
• The Ins & Outs of PlayStation All Stars’ newest fighters: Kat and Emmett
• Epic Games president Michael Capps retires
• DICE slips in a Mirror’s Edge reference (tease?) into the latest Battlefield 3 expansion
• The Slingshot Content Pack for XCOM: Enemy Unknown available today
• First Assassin’s Creed III add-on pack available now for Season Pass holders
• Replay Games fetches a new game and a chief creative officer (exclusive)
• Guitar Hero co-creator’s Green Throttle Games raises $6M to reinvent TV games
• Adobe launches new cloud-based game development tools
• Dragonborn expansion definitely coming to PlayStation 3
• Try out wizard battles in Ni no Kuni’s magical world tomorrow (updated)
• Android game console maker Ouya shipping its developer prototypes this month

Mobile news:

• After closing OpenFeint, Gree cuts jobs in U.S. offices
• Ngmoco goes next-gen with high-end graphics in The Drowning tablet game
• Brazil’s biggest mobile content publisher unveils its first game for the U.S.
• Social casino app goes to the city with New York-New York slot machine
• Tylted welcomes several top social-game developers to its mobile platform
• PlayPhone adds 20 games to its mobile social gaming network
• German ‘startup factory’ HitFox expands globally with four new game distribution businesses
• Cut the Rope developer’s next game is Pudding Monsters
• Enterprise gamification goes big as Badgeville teams up with Capgemini
• Fingerprint Digital to launch 7 new mobile education apps for kids
• Rovio adds the ice world of Hoth to Angry Birds Star Wars
• Kabam acquires Balanced Worlds game studio in China
• Swarm hopes to swoop in and help out developers fed up with Gree (exclusive)
• The Walking Dead: Assault brings top-down black-and-white shooting action to iOS

Reviews:

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragonborn is a pint-sized Morrowind (review)
• Threeview: Call of Duty: Black Ops II reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic
• Far Cry 3 is a superior rumble in the jungle (review)
• Writer Rumble is a vicious but therapeutic exercise for former English majors (review)

Interviews:

• Ben Cousins wants to prove mobile first-person shooters aren’t a pipe dream (interview)
• With a new leader, Ngmoco shoots for mobile gaming empire (interview)
• ‘Reverse Tetris’ puzzler Dream of Pixels may be critically acclaimed, but how is it selling? (interview)

Previews:

• Fast monsters in the tall grass will scare you to death in Crysis 3 (preview)
• Flutter is a kinder, gentler Pokémon with real-world butterflies (preview)
• Pull off some ridiculous time traveling heists in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (hands-on preview)
• Tomb Raider is at its best when it’s not emulating Uncharted (hands-on preview)

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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’m over convenience. Who needs digital downloads when you can put on pants, drive through cop-riddled speed traps, and deal with miserable teenage clerks at GameStop?

That’s the experience Telltale Games is offering now that its beloved adventure title The Walking Dead is heading to retailers starting Dec. 11 for $29.99. The Walking Dead is a zombie story that confronts players with impossible choices and fleshed-out characters. It’s based on the long-running comic series of the same name from creator Robert Kirkman.

The $29.99 release collects the game’s five episodes, the entire first season, on one disc.

As a preorder incentive, Telltale is offering a limited Collector’s Edition for $69.99 which includes the game and The Walking Dead Compendium One, which includes the first 48 issues of book.

Best Buy stores will have a special variant cover of the game for all platforms. It is also the only retailer that will sell a physical copy of the game for PC.

All of this only applies to North America, though Telltale is promising more info for other territories soon.

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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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Every video game character you’ve ever loved (or hated) started as a rough sketch during early development stages. Some artists nail the appearance of the hero, villain, monster, or scenery on the first few tries, but designers usually go through dozens of doodles before reaching the final, definite look.

Check out this hand-drawn concept art from 15 popular characters and see how much they resemble their finished in-game 3D models.

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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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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, THQ releases Saints Row: The Third and more of its popular games in the first non-indie Humble Bundle, women in the games industry talk about about the sexism they face in the workplace, and Atari celebrates Pong’s 40th anniversary.

You’ll also find reviews for Portal 2 In Motion, Crashmo, The Walking Dead Episode 5, King’s Bounty: Warriors of the North, Adventure Time, and Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified.

News:

• Wiki Wiki what? Wikia raises $11M to help people create, collaborate, and be original
• The DeanBeat: Nintendo reveals the Wii mini and the opinions fly everywhere
• Mobile app downloads surged 33 percent after iPhone 5 launch
• It’s not a divorce, but Zynga’s new contract with Facebook allows them to see others
• Sony says PlayStation 3 sales soared during Black Friday week
• Brazilians are gung-ho for games, but they don’t always pay for them
• This week in the Nintendo Download: YouTube, Pac-Man, and Aero Porter
• New history of Atari commemorates the 40th anniversary of Pong
• THQ becomes first big publisher to release a ‘Humble Bundle’ (updated)
• The Wii U’s processor speed is slower than Xbox 360 and PS3
• GameStop: Knowledgeable employees ‘drive’ its growing downloadable content business
• Halo 4′s Crimson Map Pack introduces 3 new maps, 1 new mode
• Starz launches Spartacus social TV experience
• Binding of Isaac: Rebirth coming to consoles with 16-bit graphics
• Trio of former Angry Birds developers secure funding for their new studio
• Production woes push Oculus Rift VR headset release into mid-March
• Zynga goes philanthropic for Toys for Tots
• Sexism is alive and well in the game industry, #1reasonwhy tweets show us (Update)
• How EA can get people to care about Mass Effect again
• See how professional Russians, Internet personalities, and Robert Downey Jr. look behind the scenes of the Black Ops 2 ad
• Xbox 360 nearly doubles the sales of the Wii U during the week of Black Friday
• Nintendo and Wii U eShop impressing indie developers faster than Microsoft and Sony
• Forget the Sixaxis — the Wii U’s GamePad has nine-axis control
• Massively multiplayer online games continue to thrive in this free-to-play era
• Nintendo announces Wii Mini: A budget Wii coming to Canada for $100
• Syberia writer returning to pen a new sequel coming in 2014 or 2015
• Hotline Miami developer confirms a sequel is coming
• Insanely popular Minecraft headed to the tiny Raspberry Pi computer

Mobile news:

• Mobile app downloads surged 33 percent after iPhone 5 launch
• Letter by Letter offers deep strategy for fans of mobile word games
• The Vectrex lives again on iOS in Vectrex Regeneration
• Heyzap debuts leaderboards to show who dominates mobile games among your friends
• GameFly set to publish its first game, Writer Rumble, for iOS tomorrow
• Poker Smash, one of Xbox Live Arcade’s best puzzle games, is now on iPhone
• Tapjoy taps former Disney executive as its new CEO
• NBA 2K13 producer reveals exclusive tips for conquering the ‘New Dynasty’
• NBA 2K: MyLIFE tips and tricks straight from the developer
• Selfpubd finds a partner to promote indie mobile games (exclusive)
• Bake450 gives “cat breading” meme lovers their own iOS game
• Mobile games saw a worldwide Thanksgiving surge in downloads
• Spike’s Video Game Awards: The mobile-game problem
• Kabam signs exclusive distribution deal in fast-growing Turkey market

Reviews:

• Portal 2 In Motion adds three mechanics, subtracts one plot (review)
• Crashmo shows smartphone puzzle games who’s boss (review)
• The Walking Dead Episode 5: No Time Left ends with a literal bang (review)
• Adventure Time puts a cartoon spin on a weird classic (review)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified should be dishonorably discharged (review)
• Warriors of the North adds to King’s Bounty’s tactics but not to its character (review)

Interviews:

• Enter The Robo Matrix: a real thing that you can control from anywhere in the world (interview)
• A soldier’s perspective on Call of Duty and its ilk (interview)

Pieces of flair:

• How insane can Scribblenauts get? (gallery)
• Save Clementine all over again with these The Walking Dead-inspired figures
• The Wii games that never happened
• 7 Wii U games too insane to exist (we hope)
• Snatched: 20 classic video game kidnappings (gallery)

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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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While The Walking Dead adventure game from developer Telltale Games continues to rack up critical acclaim, Activision is hoping for similar success with its first-person-shooter adaptation of the television adaptation of the zombie comic book series.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a first-person survival game set prior to the events of AMC’s popular TV show. Activision announced today that actors Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker will voice the characters they play onscreen, Daryl Dixon and Merle Dixon, respectively. Activision will release the title in 2013 for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

Naturally, gamers will have a chance to use Daryl’s signature crossbow to silently take out the undead walkers.

Reedus’s Daryl is one of the most popular characters on one of television’s most watched shows. Rooker only just returned to the show after missing nearly two years. Rooker is also well versed in both voice acting and working with Activision, having just voiced a major character in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

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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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Warning: This review contains spoilers for The Walking Dead video game.

After five episodes spread out over seven months, Telltale Games’ episodic adventure series The Walking Dead has come to an end. Episode 5: No Time Left is the most harrowing installment yet — a brief, action-packed jaunt through the streets of Savannah that wraps everything up in an untidy bow and teases fans with the promise of a Season Two.

What you’ll like

The focused, well-written plot
No Time Left picks up immediately where the last episode left off. Series protagonist Lee Everett stands in a morgue holding a walkie-talkie. The mystery man on the other end of the line has abducted Clementine, Lee’s 8-year-old ward. The rest of the episode focuses solely on getting her back. This makes No Time Left a leaner, meaner, and more tightly paced plot compared to its predecessors.

Much of the series’ lengthy puzzle segments are gone as well. Instead, action set pieces and quick-time events dominate the game’s short duration. None of these sequences are particularly difficult, but they do a good job of moving the story forward to its inevitably sad conclusion. At times, they feel almost cinematic. During one scene, as Lee fights his way down a zombie-infested street to reach Clementine, the music swells to epic proportions. The camera moves in close as he buries his meat cleaver into the undead with a solid thunk, one after another. It’s a very effective moment in an episode filled with them.

Even the game’s quieter scenes are meaningful. Telltale uses them to recall choices players have made throughout the game, good and bad. In many ways, No Time Left is more about Lee’s judgement as a person than it is about rescuing a child. One character in particular calls into question many of the decisions made throughout the series, and although his appearance in the story feels slightly contrived, he serves as a reminder of how personal your journey has been throughout all five episodes. Although Lee’s fate is pretty much set in stone, it’s how you get to that point that makes The Walking Dead a fantastic experience.

What you won’t like

It’s too short
No Time Left is the shortest episode of the season due to the brisk pace of its plot and its emphasis on action instead of puzzle solving. You’ll feel a little sad by the time the credits roll and you realize that’s it. There are no episodes left. At least, not until Telltale Games releases a Season Two. (Also, stick around after the credits. Trust me.)

Conclusion

Thanks to Episode 5: No Time Left, I spent nearly three hours sitting at my computer with a knot in my stomach and a few unshed tears in my eyes. It’s rare to play a game that moves you emotionally, makes you care about its characters, and causes you to gasp out loud as it shocks and disgusts you. Anyone who values storytelling in video games owes it to themselves to play The Walking Dead.

Score: 90/100

The Walking Dead Episode 5: No Time Left released on November 20, 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and on November 21, 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PC. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a PC download code for the purpose of this review.

Read our previous The Walking Dead reviews:
Episode 1: A New Day review
Episode 2: Starved for Help review
Episode 3: Long Road Ahead review
Episode 4: Around Every Corner review

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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 could never get into collecting toys. Except for my one-time splurge on a really awesome 12-inch figurine of Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4, I’m too cheap to buy them. But when I saw artist Shaun Nakasone’s custom pair of vinyl toys based on Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead adventure-horror game, I had to physically stop myself from reaching for my credit card.

Under his Sciurus Customs label, Nakasone enjoys sculpting these figures for people partly because they were originally meant as gifts for his friends. “A few of them urged me to post [the figures] online and it pretty much went from there,” he said in an email interview with GamesBeat. “Some are based off commission requests but most are just characters I have an attachment to and I guess others like them, too. The characters I sculpt usually don’t have many figures based on them, and I think people appreciate the fact that there are some [like them] out there.”

Whether he’s re-creating comic book superheroes or video game characters (more pictured in the gallery below), Nakasone always starts off with a blank canvas. He uses collectible vinyl figurines as a base for the characters: Hasbro’s Mighty Muggs line and Kidrobot’s Munny toys.

“By poring over reference materials, painting, and sculpting, you really get a good idea of the design that made the character: What makes them work, and what makes them distinct,” he said. “It’s a pretty meditative process and its interesting to discover small details that you [didn't see before]. I also enjoy the sense of progress after each figure, learning from my past mistakes and improving on ideas and methods.”

For The Walking Dead, Nakasone had the added challenge of adapting the game’s comic book-inspired graphics. “I sketched out the designs of the figures on the computer, getting as much references from books or the Internet as possible,” he said. “It’s really important to study the references, seeing what aspects of the design that make the characters and dissecting what makes the art style the way it is. That is most of the work for me: staying true to the character no matter the change in media or proportion.”

“Lee and Clementine have a different style to most of the custom figures I make,” he continued. “There’s a really sketchy, grungy quality to the [way] characters are rendered in the game: lots of lines of varied weight and smudged color caked on top of each other. I wanted to make sure that aspect of the art style translated to the final pieces, since it really informed who the characters were.”

Nakasone wanted to send both pieces as a donation to Tested.com’s second annual Octoberkast, a 24-hour live podcast that raises money for Child’s Play, a nonprofit organization that donates games and toys to hospitals for sick children to play with. Among this year’s Oktobercast participants were a number of staff members from Telltale Games, including The Walking Dead story consultant Gary Whitta, creative lead Sean Vanaman, and lead designer Jake Rodkin.

Unfortunately, Nakasone wasn’t able to finish Lee and Clementine in time. So he set up his own auction on eBay, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Child’s Play.

“I ended up doing Lee and Clementine from the Walking Dead on one part because of Telltale Games’ link with Octoberkast, but mostly because of my emotional attachment to the game and its characters,” he said. “Telltale Games really did a fantastic job getting me to really care for [them]. Everyone I know who played the game really empathize with Lee and has a protective/paternal feeling for Clementine, which I’ve really never seen a game do to this degree. That pretty much made them the perfect choice for characters I wanted to make for the charity auction.”

Like his earlier work, Lee and Clementine will mostly likely end up being one-of-a-kind. He doesn’t have any plans to make other characters from The Walking Dead. But even if he does, don’t expect him to include Kenny. “He ended up pretty dislikable in my playthrough,” he said.

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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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The Walking Dead adventure title from developer Telltale Games is going to get a special edition retail release for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

On December 4 for $29.99, players can pick up the first five episodes of The Walking Dead on one physical disc. Retailers across the country will carry the standard version of this zombie game.

The Walking Dead: Collector’s Edition is available exclusively at GameStop. Telltale claims that it’s producing this special version in extremely limited quantities. Customers will only be able to get their hands on this $59.99 bundle with a pre-order.

The Collector’s Edition contains the following:

• The game disc with the first five episodes.
• Special box art from Charlie Adlard, who illustrates the comic-book series.
• Exclusive version of The Walking Dead Compendium One (containing the first 48 comics in the series), with exclusive art from Charlie Adlard.

Separately, the compendium retails for $59.99, the same price as the Collector’s Edition. Image Comics, the publisher of the books, won’t sell this version of the compendium outside of this game package.

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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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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Kixeye’s chief executive officer calls out Zynga in the midst of an employee theft lawsuit, Microsoft reveals the new Xbox 360 dashboard, and the BioShock Infinite studio loses two more employees.

You’ll also find reviews for Skylanders Giants, the Walking Dead: Episode 4, Unfinished Swan, Happy Wars, Fable: The Journey, and Dance Central 3.

News:

• Nathan Fillion, Wil Wheaton, and more to partake in Firefall live-streaming event
• Preview of Assassin’s Creed III’s soundtrack proves the new composer did just fine
• The Witcher 2 developer’s next role-playing game is Cyberpunk 2077
• Good Old Games adds support for good ol’ Mac OS X
• Wing Commander creator’s new space sim Star Citizen now on Kickstarter
• Epic Games hires Microsoft Game Studios veteran to run Seattle developer
• Big Fish Games launches its first free-to-play game on PCs and Macs
• Twitch helps raise $1.5M from gamers for charity
• Grim but real player stats: 85 percent of social gamers do not return after the first day playing
• Licensed-games publisher Little Orbit lands investment from private equity group
• Forza Horizon to get Rally expansion for $20
• Claritics and Badgeville team up to gamify the enterprise
• Xbox Live members say Obama won second debate
• In midst of employee theft lawsuit, Kixeye CEO takes a blast at Zynga
• Obsidian raises $3.9M on Kickstarter for Project Eternity role-playing game
• Going once; going twice: News Corp. to auction off IGN Entertainment
• Skyrim game files hint at DLC dragon mounts and Morrowind locations
• The 10 most-anticipated games for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii are all sequels
• Maximize your collections! BankersLab gamifies debt collection (exclusive)
• Beat the GMAT acquired by education giant Hobsons (exclusive)
• New update almost makes the Xbox 360 dashboard useful
• Head-mounted displays are still amazing (and still expensive)
• BioShock Infinite studio loses two more developers
• The Halo 4 leak: Microsoft responds, begins dealing out permanent account bans
• The Walking Dead developer is rumbling about its next comic-book adaptation again
• Call of Duty Elite goes free as Activision charges only for DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• MHL lets you play a bunch of Android mobile games on your TV (exclusive)

Mobile News:

• Disney’s mobile game star Swampy gets his own animated series
• Nexon partners to take Dungeon Fighter Online to mobile gamers in China
• Striiv launches a free fitness measurement app on the iPhone

Wii U:

• GamePad designer on Wii U motion games: ‘No, please don’t!’
• Nintendo engineers explain the magic of the Wii U GamePad’s video technology

Previews:

• Keep your Dance Central 3 party going with its SmartGlass DJ app (preview)

Reviews:

• Skylanders Giants is a kinder, gentler Diablo (review)
• Threeview: Dishonored reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic
• RollerCoaster Tycoon 3D is a lazy, featureless shell of its predecessors (review)
• Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty gives you a reason to return to Borderlands 2 … unless you haven’t left yet (review)
• The Unfinished Swan is wonderfully creative but full of emptiness (review)
• Happy Wars brings free-to-play gaming to Xbox 360, and it’s worth every penny (review)
• Fable: The Journey surprises by smart mix of motion controls and storytelling (review)
• Dance Central 3 hops, shuffles, and body rolls its way to greatness (review)
• The Walking Dead Episode 4: Around Every Corner is big on emotion, small on challenge

Tips and guides:

• 8 tips for saving the world in XCOM: Enemy Unknown
• What is the Wii U? Everything you need to know about Nintendo’s new console
• The XCOM field commander’s tactical guide to Enemy Unknown

Interviews:

• Citadel of Sorcery is the most ambitious game you’ve never heard of (interview)
• Three DigiPen grads are thinking big by producing small (interview)
• Why Activision is making Call of Duty Elite into a free service (interview)

Pieces of flair:

• Don’t shake it! Admire some impressive Etch A Sketch gaming art (gallery)
• ‘Our exit strategy is death’ guides Days of Wonder’s board game philosophy
• GamesBeat’s massive Street Fighter tournament: 32 fighters enter, 16 leave
• 15 Street Fighter III peculiarities you may have overlooked

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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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As Telltale games finishes up its game adaptation of The Walking Dead, it’s started talking about its other comic-book game: Fables.

Fables is a monthly serialized comic book series from writer Bill Willingham. It deals with characters and creatures of folklore who live in New York City. Telltale Games using it as the basis for its next adventure franchise. Telltale has a simple landing page on its official website making the announcement. Fans can sign up for a mailing list and the developer will send updates about the game’s production.

Besides the popular and critically acclaimed adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s zombie books, Telltale Games also produced the recent Sam & Max, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park games. These focus on story and decision making. The Walking Dead features a moderately deep decision engine that would change many aspects of the game depending on player choices.

Telltale had previously dropped word that it was working with Willingham on a Fables game in mid-2011 at the San Diego Comic-Con, but the developer had been silent on that until a recent post to its Twitter account.

If you haven’t heard yet, it’s true. Game based on @billwillingham‘s #Fables has been announced from @telltalegames.telltalegames.com/fables

— Telltale Games (@telltalegames) October 15, 2012

The Walking Dead’s fifth and final episode is due out within the next few weeks. We’ll likely hear more about Fables soon after that.

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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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