Capturing the essence of Jonathan Blow's Braid within a single sentence isn't the easiest thing to do, especially not if you want to avoid run-on monstrosities like: It's the game about a tie-wearing, time-traveling gentleman on a quest to rescue a princess, inconveniently held captive at the end of six beautiful worlds filled with all manner of puzzles which require fiddling with the flow of time to solve also it's really, really good according to reviews. So, let's go with "it's really, really good according to reviews" and leave it at that, eh?

• IGN (88/100): "Xbox Live Arcade needs more games like Braid. Heck, gaming on all platforms needs more titles like this. Imaginative, innovative, and engrossing, Braid is a spectacular achievement. If only the experience lasted a little longer and there weren't as many puzzles with singular solutions."
• Edge (90/100): "Braid remains a beautiful and brilliantly demanding game that barely contains its dense population of ideas, taking its place alongside Geometry Wars and Pac-Man Championship Edition as one of the finest original titles available on Live Arcade."
• Eurogamer (100/100): "I've gone to bed thinking about Braid, and I've woken up thinking about it. From the fragments I remember, I'm pretty sure I've dreamed about it as well. Braid is that sort of game."

Although we already knew Fable 2 was arriving in October, Lionhead Studios has revealed the awaited title will hit US store shelves, then proceed to raise a family while it waits to be purchased, on October 21. European gamers can expect the game days later on October 24. For those who want to start padding their virtual wallets early, the Xbox Live Arcade Pub Games will land August 13.

Lionhead also unveiled an image of all that you can expect to get if you pick up the Limited Edition copy of the game. Details of the LE after the break.

[Via X3F]

I was lucky enough to be able to go up to George Lucas' ranch this Sunday to see a screening of The Clone Wars and to interview the man himself, along with director Dave Filoni and producer Catherine Winder. To top that off, they gave us an insider's tour of the inner working at Lucasfilm and LucasArts.

There's a gallery below filled with highlights from the tour, including the LucasArts gaming lounge, the playtester's room, and their mocap studio. However, the real highlight was... tons of concept art from the "so secret we won't even talk about it" Indiana Jones game that is still forthcoming. It was all dated 2005, so who knows if it'll still feature in the game, but the above image of Indy watching the Golden Gate Bridge being built gives us hope. Find out more after the break.

If you haven't been to the Star Trek Experience inside the Las Vegas Hilton, you might want to try and get yourself there on August 10th. That's when Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, will be unveiling gameplay footage from the upcoming Star Trek Online.

This long-in-the-making and often troubled MMO has had a shaky path down the development road, and Vegas might be the perfect place for it to make one of its first appearances. Developer Cryptic could renew their Star Trek vows with a quickie wedding in true Trek style. One Vulcan Vow Renewal to go, please.

After revealing special Trophies a couple days ago for the "survivor mode" in the PS3 port of BioShock, developer 2K Marin finally saw fit yesterday to explain what the new setting is all about. The wait was definitely not worth it as the PS3 "exclusive" mode isn't much more than a very hard difficulty level for the game.

2K's BioShock site, The Cult of Rapture, explains that in survivor mode there are no extra enemies, but the citizens of Rapture are tougher and deal more damage. Vita-Chambers will also provide less EVE back when dying, so there is some penalty. Players are also expected to take their time in the new mode and learn to utilize some of the "hardly-ever-bothered-with-'em" plasmids like Target Dummy and Enrage. All this secrecy over an extra difficulty mode was just so contrived. 2K, would you kindly never do that again?

Saints Row 2 producer Dan Sutton tells CVG that the game isn't coming to the Wii over controversy and graphical concerns. He explains that implementing Wii controls for "chainsaws, satchel charges, stuff like that" in the game might risk the title running into Manhunt 2-style controversy. That's a bad thing? Apparently, SR2's developer, Volition, isn't totally run by the marketing department.

Sutton also explains that SR2 won't be making it to Nintendo's waggle-enriched juggernaut because Volition is "about pushing really good graphics" -- he believes the Wii feels like an older console. Ouch, at least he didn't mention duct tape.

After giving a tiny taste of the Trophies available in the PS3 version of BioShock a couple weeks ago, 2K left people feeling like all Achievements had simply been recycled. Not so, says 2K Marin designer Tynan Wales, explaining on the PlayStation Blog that there are exclusive Trophies for the port.

• "A Man Chooses" -- Complete "Survivor" difficulty.
• "I Choose The Impossible" -- Complete "Survivor" difficulty with the Vita-Chambers turned off.

So, what's this "exclusive" mode called Survivor for the PS3 version of the game? Beats us! There were murmurings that it was a hard difficulty with the Vita-Chambers turned off, but now that these two achievements have been revealed, that's obviously not the case. We're checking with 2K for an official answer.

Update: Supposedly 2K Marin will reveal what Survivor mode is tomorrow.

This Wednesday marks the opportunity to become a tie-wearing time traveler in Jonathan Blow's Braid, an "artful puzzle-platformer" and the next volley in Microsoft's all-out August Arcade assault. You'll traverse multiple worlds as you search for a princess (yes, the abducted kind) and wrap your mind around various instances of time behaving badly -- that includes rewinding, time streams, parallel realities, time dilation and "perhaps more."

Oh, and you'll be wanting to know the price of all this. Well, we hate to rain on your Braid, but despite Microsoft's earlier denial, the game will indeed cost 1200 ($15).

Last year's Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia was one of the strangest titles we'd ever played from NIS America, and coming from a company that let us possess watering cans in Phantom Brave and do turn-based strategy as a side-scroller in GrimGrimoire, that's saying something. Offering equal parts role-playing and old school adventure, it was the included dating sim-style mechanics and the game's near-constant stream of sexual innuendo that gave Ar tonelico its unique, acquired tasted.

NIS America now drops word that it plans to release the sequel this December for the PS2. According to the publisher, this time around Ar tonelico 2 will challenge players by having them manage relationships between the game's sultry mechanical dolls known as Reyvateils, adding that "if their emotions are more closely synced, the stronger the magic becomes." We knew there was a reason to keep the PS2 around...magic lesbian robots.

[Thanks, Dennis]

[Via Engadget]

If sitting through the horrifically silly 9 gigglebyte download of Siren: Blood Curse isn't your cup of blood-flavored tea, the good news is the game is getting a Blu-ray printing this fall -- at least in Europe. We've sent an email to Sony America asking what the plan is on this side of the pond.

Although Sony Europe hasn't announced the price for Siren's episodic fright fest all on one disc, if the cost isn't excessively more than the PSN (£19.99/€29.99), we'd recommend folks in the region just wait for the Blu-ray release.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Straight from QuakeCon 2008 come some piping hot Wolfenstein goodies from the upcoming game, namely the trailer and a gallery of images. It might look like The Ghostbusters Meet Hitler, or the opening scene of the first Hellboy movie, but we're excited about the supernatural side of World War II. Thank you for that, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

This is a lot more footage than what we saw at Activision's "Not An E3 Event" event earlier this month, and it looks like it has some potential. The paranormal parts look decent, but why does some of it make us think of Call of Duty... 1? Hopefully we'll get some better looks in the coming months ahead, culminating in some Halloweenalicious spooky soldiers.

Hopefully that's enough punctuation in one headline for you. Apparently an eager gamer had sent in some ideas on how to turn their Zombies!!! game, which pretty much keep them rolling in brains and entrails, into an Xbox Live Arcade title, and was told "that they were already underway with this very project." We decided this was something we needed to look into ourselves, given our love of tabletop gaming.

We caught up with Todd A. Breitenstein of Twilight Creations in the extremely slim booth congregation at Comic-Con's gaming portion and he said, "I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a project... but do you think it would be cool?" A tile-flipping game was an escape from ravenous zombies plot? Heck yes, we would. While we enjoy getting our game on in Catan, Carcassonne, and even Ticket to Ride, we'd also love to see some good old-fashioned killing of the undead happening as well. Maybe they could even include their flipside game Humans!!! in the deal.

[Thanks, Barry!]

In a way only they could, the mad minds at Double Fine have confirmed that Brütal Legend is not dead. (Unlike the weevils Tim Schafer found in his cereal and has been posting photos of to Double Fine Action News.)

In fact, it's via Schafer's latest snapshot of dead weevil-age that the famous designer of such games as Full Throttle and Psychonauts delivered a status report on Double Fine's next creation. Mousing over the photo (under "More Information") reveals pop-up text which reads "Brütal Legend is fine." Rawk. Of course, there's still the matter of who's going to publish the game, given Activision Blizzard's apparent (and, as many agree, unfathomable) lack of interest in it.