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One thing floating around the web this week was a wonderful reminder of the intro to Madden NFL 2000, the hard-hitting EA Sports football game that had more of a chip on its shoulder than Madden games seem to have today.

With the constant concerns for player safety in the NFL, it's hard to imagine EA Sports glorifying some of the big hits seen in this intro video today. But if Ludacris took Ray Lewis' spot in the intro video to Madden NFL 13, we're not sure there would be many complaints.

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Microsoft Studios Vancouver has been rebranded as Black Tusk Studios, and the team is tasked with creating Microsoft's "next big entertainment franchise," or as the layman says it, "the next Halo."

Black Tusk has 55 employees and looks to double that number within a year; those already there have an average of 12 years experience building AAA games. This includes studio manager and former EA man, Mike Crump.

"We are working on Microsoft's next big entertainment franchise," Crump tells The Vancouver Sun. "We're not working on an existing franchise; we're looking to build the next Halo here in Vancouver, for example, which is really exciting. We are building something from the ground up."

Microsoft laid off a small number of people in Vancouver earlier this year, but said it remains invested in the British Columbia games industry. If it's pouring enough money to build another Halo franchise into Black Tusk, we'd say Microsoft is heavily invested, indeed.

Garry's Mod, the physics sandbox game made in Valve's Source engine, is coming to the Kinect SDK for PC from creator Garry Newman. Newman is aiming to launch Garry's Mod for Kinect on Thursday, December 6.

Newman has shown off a few ways Garry's Mod can use Kinect, with full-body character control and realistic world-reactions – and yes, it will be accessible in multiplayer mode. "You can join a server and take control of a ragdoll," Newman writes in the description for the below video. "Your friend can join and take control of one and you can dance together." Because that's what friends do.

Potential motion controllers will need a Kinect and Kinect for Windows Runtime v1.6. There is no Mac version ("Sorry, Mac guys," Newman writes).

Check out all the wacky wanderings you can get up to with Garry's Mod for the Kinect SDK in Newman's introductory post and today's follow-up, and watch his second Kinect demo video after the break.

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The Kickstarter for Sir, You Are Being Hunted ended today and was a resounding success, raising £92,551 of a requested £40,000 ($148,303/$64,096). This fell short of the £100,000 goal that would allow character creation and customization, but Big Robot said it "will endeavor to get some aspects of it into the game."

Donations unlocked six of seven stretch goals, including a multiplayer mode. Multiplayer will not ship with the game, but it will be free for those who own it. Big Robot didn't alter the launch window of July 2013, but did add caution to its tale:

"With plans to add a lot more content via stretch goals, it's sensible for us to say that the current July 2013 release goal might be subject to some slippage. We're still aiming for that date, of course, and we'll keep you guys aprised of any changes."

A Steam version was still unconfirmed, but Big Robot said, "Naturally we are hoping to get on to Steam. All Kickstarter backers will get a Steam key when that happens. Stay tuned for news on that in the next few months." The game's PayPal donation page will remain open for "a while longer."

Sir, You Are Being Hunted is a tweedpunk, first-person, singleplayer game that has players attempt to survive in a world overrun with robotic aristocrats who hunt humans for fun. No wonder its Kickstarter succeeded.

Terminal Reality's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a first-person shooter based on AMC's television series, which is of course based on The Walking Dead comic series from Robert Kirkman. It's the first new-media extrapolation to be based on something based on The Walking Dead, rather than on the graphic novel itself, which is probably a smart move when a game directly from the comic has already proven extremely successful.

All that said, Survival Instinct integrates AMC's TV show directly, grabbing Norman Reedus, the actor who plays Daryl Dixon, to voice the main protagonist.

"Norman is super-cool, generous, and a real joy to work with," writes Terminal Reality Creative Director Drew Haworth. "And man, does that guy deliver! He gets the scene, the line, and what you're going for instantly and then doubles down on it, effortlessly 'Darylizing' lines for maximum punch. He's the kind of actor that really makes writers look good."

From our own experience with the TV show, we have to agree with that last statement. No one on The Walking Dead nails "looking dramatically at another cast member, in silence, for five whole minutes" quite like Reedus.

Square Enix registered trademarks and domain names named "All the Bravest" Thursday. According to WhoIs records, allthebravest.com and allthebravest.net belong to the game publisher now, while the trademark (number 011386349) was filed in Europe.

A search for "All the Bravest" in the US patent and trademark records turns up nothing, and both registered URLs are empty. Our first thought is that this could infer a possible localization of Japanese 3DS RPG Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, but the only thing we can gather from this with any certainty is that Square Enix isn't interested in only "some of the bravest."

Kongregate now hosts downloadable, free games, as well as its standard fare of browser-based titles. The first three downloadable games on Kongregate are Super Monday Night Combat, Bomb Buddies and Smashmuck Champions, all available right now.

Kongregate will drop more downloadable games in the "coming weeks," and they are all integrated into existing social services. Players must sign into Kongregate to launch the games, and each one now available earns players 10 points.

"Our players are looking for increasingly sophisticated games," says Jim Greer, Kongregate CEO and co-founder. "Adding downloadable titles brings a new level of gaming to hardcore players looking for high-definition graphics with more options and content to select from."

What previously set Kongregate apart from digital distributors is its focus on in-browser entertainment. Now it's inching closer to Steam territory, but still has its own flair in offering only free games for download. It's kind of like a tomcat slowly slinking into another's alleyway, and now we just wait for the hissing to begin.

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Elite: Dangerous, the Kickstarter project by Frontier Developments, has a new developer diary video from Founder David Braben discussing the ways in which the game's galaxy evolves over time. In the video, Braben describes the development of planets and the various contracts that players complete in the game, including the transportation dignitaries that may have bounties on their heads.

The Kickstarter project is at the half-way point of its nearly $2 million funding goal with 33 days left before its January 4, 2013 deadline. Providing the goal is met, Elite: Dangerous is set to launch on PC in March 2014.

Looking at webcomics every week, I notice how often old, or "retro" games are depicted. You can anticipate a new Pokemon, Zelda or Mario comic nearly every week. Knowing how interesting and funny some of them turn out, I really have no problem with it. What stands out are the comics that point out problems with today's hottest games.

No, I don't think the artists are "doing it wrong" by complaining about modern games, but when topics such as premium content and microtransactions are an important part of gaming culture, it makes you wonder about the ways the industry has changed through the years. Some of those changes are for the better; no one should have any issues with excellent episodic-style game releases or free downloadable add-ons for their favorite games. Others are met with constant debates. Could some publishers simply be doing it wrong?

When I look at the weekly Mario-themed comics now, I realize that some players might be yearning for simpler times. Who could be faulted for that? I encourage you to check out last week's webcomics and vote for your favorite after the break!

Mario babies (Extra Fabulous Comics)
It's Thinking (Nerd Rage)
Hiiiiya! (Corpse Run)
Meryl and Snake (Legacy Control)
Call of Duty: The Ultimate Pointstreak (Dorkly)
Butt Stallion (Manly Guys Doing Manly Things)
Mindcraft (Penny Arcade)
Hints from the Miiverse (Brawl in the Family)

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PlayStation Network is scheduled for maintenance Monday, December 3, and will be down from 8am PT/11am ET to 4pm PT/7pm ET.

Those that have signed in to PSN in the last few days or do so this weekend shouldn't be affected by the maintenance period and can play online Monday. PlayStation Home, the PlayStation Store and account management sections are off-limits, however.

Back in 1982, the video game hardware industry was an untamed, Wild West-esque madhouse of creativity and gimmicks, both of which often traveled hand in hand. One such example of pre-crash insanity was the Vectrex, a game console with a built-in CRT vector-graphics monitor and transparent screen overlays that faux-colorized the display.

Production of the Vectrex ceased in 1984, but mobile developer Rantmedia Games has resurrected the wonky thing as Vectrex Regeneration, an emulation platform for iOS devices. Available for free on the App Store, the app includes the original Vectrex's built-in game Minestorm, as well as indie games that have been developed for the platform since its demise.

Access to 18 further titles from the Vectrex's catalogue, as well as iCade support, can be purchased for $6.99. Eventually, all 29 games ever released for the system will be added as in-app purchases. Unfortunately, the app does not include flimsy plastic screen covers like the original did, but we guess you can't have everything.

Vectrex Regeneration (12/1/12)

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Team Meat's latest teaser for Mew-Genics is all about the game's "cast of cats," in that it features over 12,207,031,250,000,000,000,000 felines. The developer blog explains that the enormous number "only applies to how the cat looks, if you include its personality variables that number multiplies by A LOT."

Team Meat added that "ability variables and personal stats" could practically guarantee that you'll never get the same cat twice in the game. Not that we know what that entails, since all we really know about Mew-Genics is that it's "kind of" about cats. Lots of them.

When Halo 4 launched way, way back on November 6, only those that purchased the game's Limited Edition were granted access to all eight multiplayer Specializations; normal players could only make use of two. As of today, however, a slightly greater number of people will be able to utilize the other six classes originally reserved for the cool kids.

Codes to download "Specialization Priority Alpha" are currently being emailed to anyone that participated in Halo 4's multiplayer prior to November 20, Kotaku reports. The DLC acts as a key that unlocks Engineer, Tracker, Rogue, Stalker, Patherfinder and Operator Specializations, all of which grant unique armor and abilities after Level 50.

For anyone that doesn't meet that criteria, well, you can always make your own unique armor out of cardboard and duct tape. Other players won't be able to see it, granted, but you'll know. And, in the end, isn't that the important thing?

Production appear to be progressing according to schedule over at Ouya, which has just announced that the development kits for its self-titled debut game console will ship out to qualifying Kickstarter supporters on December 28, just as planned.

While every Ouya console that ever ships can be used for software development, these pre-retail units have some unknown differentiating feature, according to Ouya's official site, which calls them "rare drops."

The Android-powered console's SDK (or "ODK," as Ouya is calling it) is currently being tested and will become available "when the dev consoles ship to gamemakers." Ownership of an Ouya dev kit is not required to access the ODK, however, as it'll be freely and publicly available online. Conversely, an Ouya dev kit is required to see the console's custom Jelly Bean GUI in its current state.

Irrational Games coughed up the box art for BioShock Infinite today, and it features lead character Booker DeWitt and his five o'clock shadow. We're guessing that with the game's lack of multiplayer, DeWitt doesn't feel the need to be presentable.

BioShock Infinite is scheduled to launch February 26, 2013 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Check out higher resolution versions of the cover art in the gallery below.

Dead or Alive 5 Plus, a PlayStation Vita port of September's Dead or Alive 5, has just been announced by Team Ninja head Yosuke Hayashi. Details are slim at the moment, although we do know that the port is expected to hit Sony's handheld sometime during the early part of 2013. An update to the console version of DOA5 is also expected sometime next year.

The reveal, made on the official IGN Pro League YouTube channel, comes shortly after the announcement that Dead or Alive 5 will be added to IPL's official stable of e-sports titles. Starting in 2013, DOA5 tournaments will be held alongside IPL's other events, which currently include Starcraft 2 and League of Legends, among others.

Nicalis is proposing four different art styles for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, the console remake of Team Meat's bizarre PC game. Fans can vote on the four mock-up 16-bit art styles seen in the gallery below to determine which direction Nicalis will take the remake in.

According to The Binding of Isaac creator Edmund McMillen's Tumblr blog, the game is getting a face lift "because I think the art is tired and I'm sick of looking at it." The survey also asks for input on which platforms the game should appear on, with 3DS and Wii U listed as options.

Nicalis will begin development on the project in January and hopes to launch PS3, Vita and PC (Steam) versions of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth by the end of 2013, with Xbox 360, iOS and Nintendo console ports a possibility.