Its a sad fact. Wearing a videogame T-shirt can make you look like a total dork.

Fashion-forward outfits like Meatbun and Panic Goods have gained major headway in making game apparel fashionable, but now the big kids are getting in on the game.

Brooklyn clothier Mishka has teamed with Double Fine to create a pair of badass Brütal Legend tees. The new designs feature artwork by metal art veterans Daniel Mumford and James Callahan.

In the months to come, the Brütal Legend blog will reveal how to get your hands on these killer T-shirts. Be vigilant, because Mishka’s exclusives frequently sell out quickly, never to return. Until then, Mishka is giving away copies of Brütal Legend. If you are one of those naughty people who listened to Kohler and skipped the game, pay a visit to the Mishka blog to enter the drawing.

Image courtesy EA

See Also:

• Review: Brütal Legend Rocks the Story, Whiffs the Gameplay
• PS3 Bogarts New Brütal Legend DLC
• Brütal Legend's Botched TV Ad: Welcome to 'Hell No'
• Eyes On: Jack Black Destroys Demons With Power of Rock in Brütal Legend
• Brütal Legend Finds a Home At Electronic Arts

Here’s what you need to know about Modern Warfare 2: It’s a magnificent multiplayer game.

Yes, the incredibly popular new shooter for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (reviewed) comes bundled with an entertaining and substantial single-player storyline, one that has already stirred up a little controversy.

See also:

Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles

Powerful Modern Warfare 2 Plot Hits Close to Home

But it’s not this string of missions that will cause millions of gamers to stay glued to their machines through Thanksgiving and beyond. It’s the addictive and robust player-versus-player online combat.

There’s serious voodoo in Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer mode. The game integrates the character progression and user customization of role-playing games into its death-matches. Every kill earns you experience points. Even if you lose, you earn upgrades at the end of every ass-whooping. And with those points, you earn access to new weapons, customized avatars and new challenges that — you guessed it — unlock more goodies.

At first, I felt like it was a cheat, as if developer Infinity Ward was fooling me into playing the same old vanilla multiplayer shooter all over again by dangling carrots in my face. But I soon found that the bonuses you earn are meaningful and alluring. I entered my first multiplayer match as a Grenadier equipped with the standard FAMAS assault rifle. As I racked up kills with the French bullpup, I started leveling up my proficiency with the weapon, unlocking upgrades.

Many of the rewards were superficial, like ammo patterns, but the “heartbeat sensor” upgrade was a game-changer.

This requires a bit of setup. As with many games, Modern Warfare 2 has a radar in the corner of the screen that shows enemy positions. But your team has to earn that intel. Players will occasionally be able to summon a friendly drone that will fly in and point out enemy positions. The enemy can try to jam that drone’s signal, or call in their own aerial vehicle to find you.

It’s a complex game of technological cat-and-mouse that relies heavily on each team’s ballistic prowess. And that’s just the fight over the radar screens.

So where did my new heartbeat sensor come in? Mounted on my gun, it showed me the position of every living, breathing entity on the map. Just like the space marines in Aliens, I could look down at my weapon and see where my enemies were, even if my team didn’t have a drone in the air.

My heartbeat sensor upgrade gave me a slight edge in combat, because I’d grown to rely on radar intel to hunt down enemy stragglers and keep myself from accidentally wandering into a hornets’ nest.

There are dozens of similar paths that players can explore, be they snipers, explosives experts or run-and-gun grunts. Modern Warfare 2’s tweaks, upgrades and perks are the reason to play — not the “been there, done that” combat.

Modern Warfare 2 features a spec-ops mode that allows players to cooperate on missions.
Images courtesy Activision

Modern Warfare 2 also features a series of special-ops missions that you can play cooperatively with friends. Some of the scenarios play out like time trials, urging players to hone their tactical techniques. Others are about survival, with waves of enemies pushing in on the players’ position. These tasks are no replacement for a true cooperative campaign mode, but there’s so much to do in Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer they don’t feel like a gyp.

Played solo, the game seems like a string of action-movie set-pieces sewn together with the flimsiest of plot. Big things happen: A terrorist organization fools Russia, under the sway of ultranationalists, into invading America. Players hop in and out of the boots of a handful of soldiers in a broad variety of missions.

A large-scale battle goes down in the National Mall. Amidst the wreckage of a stately building, the player takes potshots at enemy tanks and copters with a rocket launcher, with the Washington Monument looming in the smoke-darkened sky. On foot in Rio de Janeiro, the player finds himself running for his life, attacked from all sides by militia men in the claustrophobic shanty town.

The logic that draws us from one gunfight to the next isn’t terribly sound. The plot delivers some contrived reason as to why you find yourself in Brazil, but the real reasons your boots are in this particular dirt is clear to anybody who saw The Hulk: The intricate favela is a killer place for an action scene.

Trying to puzzle meaning out of Modern Warfare 2’s plot is a foolish endeavor. The game cribs its morality from post-Vietnam Hollywood: War is bad, except when it’s not. Soldiers who fight for freedom are good, except when they’re not.

The moments when Modern Warfare 2 isn’t good are few and far between. That’s about all you can ask from a hero.

WIRED Mesmerizing, meaningful multiplayer.

TIRED Patchwork single-player story hemmed together with quick cut scenes.

$60, Activision

Rating:

Read Game|Life’s game ratings guide.

See Also:

• Powerful Modern Warfare 2 Plot Hits Close to Home
• Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles
• Debating Modern Warfare 2 on News Radio
• Limited-Edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 Boasts 250-GB Drive
  

The long-delayed Final Fantasy XIII will be released in the U.S. and Europe on March 9, 2010, Square Enix said Friday.

Square Enix also said that the Western releases of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game would feature a new theme song — “My Hands,” by RCA Music Group recording artist Leona Lewis. The Japanese version of the game, to be released on December 17, features two songs performed by Sayuri Sugawara, written by composer Masashi Hamauzu.

This is the first time that the overseas release of a Final Fantasy game has featured anything other than a translated version of the original theme song, so this use of a licensed track represents a bold new direction for Square Enix.

The publisher apparently considered today’s announcement way too important for something so positively mundane as a press release, so it put together an elaborate video to announce the date.

Highlight: Watching Square Enix overseas president John Yamamoto’s eyeballs as he visibly reads off of cue cards.

Not at all coincidentally, Lewis’ new album, which contains “My Hands,” will be released on November 17.

Some Final Fantasy fans are of course in high dudgeon over the swapping out of Hamauzu’s original music for a pre-existing, licensed track. What do you think — is marketing trumping artistry here, or is it not worth getting one’s limited edition Shinra-logo panties in a twist over?

Image: Square Enix

The U.S. videogame market fell 19% versus last year in October 2009, although certain games showed solid performance, the NPD Group reported Thursday.

Average weekly sales of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 declined from last month, NPD said, although sales of PSP, Nintendo DS and Wii were up. PlayStation 3’s price cut did keep the console ahead of Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Sony’s excellent PlayStation 3 game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (above) enjoyed a well-deserved run at the top of the software charts, followed closely by Nintendo’s Wii Fit Plus.

NPD said that “roughly half” the sales of Nintendo’s upgraded exercise game were the $100 version bundled with the Balance Board controller, suggesting that it is bringing many new players into the franchise.

U.S. Hardware Sales, October 2009

1. Wii 506.9K
2. Nintendo DS 457.6K
3. PlayStation 3 320.6K
4. Xbox 360 249.7K
5. PSP 174.6K
6. PlayStation 2 117.8K

Software sales and analysis below.

U.S. Top Ten Software Sales, October 2009

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, Sony) 537,000
2. Wii Fit Plus (Wii, Nintendo) 441,000
3. Borderlands (360, Take 2) 418,000
4. Wii Sports Resort (Wii, Nintendo) 314,000
5. NBA 2K10 (360, Take 2) 311,000
6. Halo 3: ODST (360, Microsoft) 271,000
7. NBA 2K10 (PS3, Take 2) 213,000
8. Forza Motorsport 3 (360, Microsoft) 175,000
9. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS, Square Enix) 169,000
10. FIFA Soccer 10 (360, Electronic Arts) 156,000

One of the big questions going into this holiday season was always whether Nintendo would be able to shore up its software lineup with games that, unlike Wii Music, its casual audience was going to want to buy. If Wii Fit Plus can, as NPD has pointed out, bring in many new customers as well as give current Balance Board users something new to do with the hardware, then combined with Wii Sports Resort Nintendo has probably done just barely enough to shore up its expanded-audience customers for another holiday.

We can add to this the wildcard of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Yes, it’s going to sell well, but the question is whether it does what the Nintendo DS version of the series did and explode, becoming a massive casual success to rival Brain Age.

Sony has to be happy that it’s beating the Xbox 360, but a month-on-month sales decline heading into the holiday season the month after a massive price cut and hardware refresh doesn’t sound like entirely positive news.

NPD points out that, generally speaking, its research suggests that the holiday season could be a restrained one all around: “Our latest Economy Tracker indicated that although consumers’ general opinion about the economy is improving, their outlook on their own personal situation is worsening.  If consumers’ personal outlook continues to erode, they could very well be much more conservative with their holiday shopping this year,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement.

Oh, and if you’re still following the saga of how many copies did Beatles Rock Band sell on each platform, the update for this month is that we have no idea, since everything in the music category slid off the Top 10.

Image courtesy Sony

See Also:

• NPD September: PS3 on Top, Beatles Beat Cobain
• August NPD: Madden Beats Wii Sports
• NPD July 2009: Wii Sports Resort Tops Slow Month
• NPD June 2009: Prototype Wins, But Only On 360
• May NPD: UFC Game a Smash Hit

The new trailer for the Avatar videogame underlines the lengths the game’s designers have gone to in an effort to match the look and feel of the movie’s fantastical setting. Notice, though, that you don’t get a good look at the characters played by Avatar stars Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington or Michelle Rodriguez.

But who needs realistic-looking celebrities when you’ve got power armor, space marines and crazy alien monsters? The Avatar game is due from Ubisoft on Dec. 1; the Avatar movie hits theaters Dec. 18.

See Also:

• Video: Behind the Scenes of Avatar
• Avatar Trailer Set for 'World's Largest' Live Viewing (Updated)
• Avatar's Stunning Flora, Fauna Give Comic-Con an Eyeful
• First Avatar Trailer Reveals Pandora's Intoxicating Alien World
• Former German Chancellor Unhappy With Avatar Trailer

Wednesday morning, I was a guest on the KSRO early-morning news broadcast out of Sonoma County, California. The subject was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and violence in videogames.

The entire exchange is already archived at the station’s website. The description of the clip makes it sound like KSRO was out for blood, but the exchange was very even-handed. I was quizzed on the subject matter of Modern Warfare 2, the tendency towards violence in videogames and the role of parents in the gaming lives of their kids.

It felt good to get on the air and try to talk sensibly about our pastime, especially now that critics of gaming are circling around the shocking “No Russian” sequence and, to a lesser extent, the bone-headed viral video for Modern Warfare 2.

At any rate, let me know how I did. KSRO said they’d be inviting me back to represent Wired.com and the gamer perspective the next time they find another interesting story on the games beat.

Image courtesy Activision

See Also:

• Powerful Modern Warfare 2 Plot Hits Close to Home
• Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles
• Limited-Edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 Boasts 250-GB Drive …
• Activision Offers 10 Seconds of Modern Warfare 2

The Modern Warfare publisher has committed to raising millions of dollars through a new foundation called the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit dedicated to helping soldiers find work.

This announcement coincided with the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which launched worldwide on November 10. Proceeds from the game will help fund the charity, Activision said.

An initial grant of $125,000 was made to the Paralyzed Veterans of America to help fund a new rehabilitation center in Boston.

A C.O.D.E. advisory board assembled by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will identify other organizations in need of grants and work to raise awareness for out-of-work veterans.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than half a million unemployed veterans living in the United States.

Image courtesy Activision Blizzard

See Also:

• Powerful Modern Warfare 2 Plot Hits Close to Home
• Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles
• Ümloud!, a Rock Band Night for Child’s Play
• Buy Scott Pilgrim Poster For Child’s Play
• Sony Online Entertainment Sells Virtual Loot for Child’s Play …

Disney’s imagineers have installed original videogames to help entertain parkgoers waiting to ride Space Mountain.

Renovations to the popular ride at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which has been offline since April, are currently under way. One of the big changes will be a series of videogame diversions. The games will stick close to the Space Mountain story and revolve around the kinds of duties a space station employee might be tasked with, such as deflecting asteroids or clearing runways for takeoff.

The games will last 90 seconds — long enough to distract kids and parents from the monotonous wait, but not so engrossing that they’ll slow the line down any further. Up to 86 players can play at once.

The Space Mountain ride at California’s Disneyland was closed and renovated in 2003 and relaunched in 2005.

I hope similar games are planned for the Star Tours rides, which are due to re-launch in 2011. How about some iPhone or Nintendo DS interactivity, guys?

Image courtesy Disney

Classic Space Mountain Attraction to Reopen with a Few Surprises [Disney Parks Blog, via Boing Boing]

See Also:

• Wired 10.12: Rebuilding Tomorrowland
• Immigrants Naturalized at Disney World — Natch
• Hack the Magic - Feature
• Disney Calls Off Thrill Ride Boob Cops
• Wired 14.04: The Massively Multiplayer Magic Kingdom

OSAKA, Japan — A Japanese arcade is pulling the stuffed animals out of some of its prize machines and replacing them with something that appeals to an older audience: freshly made baked goods.

One on One, an entertainment center in Osaka, offers Japan’s first “sweets crane game.” Alongside traditional claw vending machines full of stuffed toys and other prizes, customers can take a shot at winning fresh desserts: individually wrapped donuts, glass cups of pudding, even baumkuchen.

The customers playing these games are generally older than the average arcade-goer in Japan. The high school kids are still playing crane games hoping to snag stuffed bears, but “sweets crane” connoisseurs are mainly young married couples with children. Most told me they didn’t usually try their hands at these games — but that didn’t keep them from winning a few times.

Fresh-baked donuts, gourmet pudding and entire roll cakes fill sweets crane machines at One on One.
Top photo: Daniel Feit/Wired.com; bottom photos courtesy One on One

Crane games, known in Japan as “UFO catchers,” are a mainstay of the country’s arcades. Players use a joystick to manipulate a mechanical claw over an enclosed bin full of prizes, in hopes of picking one up and getting it out of the machine. Players can snag some of One on One’s cakes and pastries for just 100 yen ($1.09) each — if their crane technique is strong.

One on One’s machines are refrigerated, and the treats are clearly marked with an expiration date. Many of the items are labeled: “Please eat by the end of the day.”

It’s tough to snag the cakes. Many Japanese machines use a flying saucer-shaped arm (hence “UFO catcher”) that can be used to precisely grab the goods. But several of One on One’s use free-swinging hooks, which are not as controllable. You have to hope that it swings the right way and catches the prize just right.

If you manage to pick up a dessert with the claw, a worker waiting by the machine will honk horns and ring bells to celebrate your victory. (They never tolled for me.)

Stocking prize machines with fresh baked goods might seem crazy, but One on One is onto something: These prizes cannot be collected, only consumed. And while everyone has a limit to the amount of cutesy crap they can fit into their home, there’s always room for dessert.

See Also:

• Snow Ordinary Dessert
• Osaka’s Nerd District Offers Curry Rice in Cans
• Tokyo Curry Mania: ‘Kanazawa Curry’ Takes Over Akihabara
• SXSW Eats: Jo’s Frito Pie, a Decadent Mashup of Pig, Corn

The early hours of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 take gamers around the world and back again, but the new game’s story hits close to home.

Military scenarios, violent police actions and straight-from-the-big-screen massive firefights take place in such far-flung locales as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Brazil. But things don’t really get interesting until the action moves to Russia and the player is embedded in a squad of terrorists. And then, inevitably, the fight comes to U.S. shores.

See also:

Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles

Modern Warfare 2, a first-person shooter released Tuesday for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, is a greatly immersive experience that embeds players in the battlefield.

There’s no place in the world where a skirmish can’t go down, from airport security lines to the neighborhood burger joint to your own backyard. It’s an unsettling notion and one sure to inspire plenty of parental hand-wringing, particularly for those who buy their kids the live-the-action box set that includes a pair of night-vision goggles.

(Spoiler alert: The moments I’m about to relate describe the plot of Modern Warfare 2 — not where the game finally goes, but the early incidents that establish the conflict and tension of the game. Some readers may consider these to be spoilers.)

Russia is where the already-controversial “No Russian” scene goes down. As Army Ranger Pvt. Allen, players go undercover with Vladimir Makarov — an underling of the villain from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Along with Makarov and other terrorists, the player finds themselves in the midst of a terrible situation. The fully armed Makarov and crew waltz into a Russian airport and open fire on civilians standing in a security line.

As Allen, the player can take part in the bloodshed or simply walk alongside the cold-blooded killers as they execute hundreds of innocents. Either way, the scene is powerful. It’s also the oldest trick in the book: The quickest way to turn audiences against your villain is to show them doing dirty deeds, and Makarov’s murderous spree is a doozy.

Allen doesn’t walk away from the bloodbath. Once outside the terminal, players must fend off waves of incoming SWAT teams. If there’s any kind of karmic debt that Allen owes for his role in the slayings, the guy pays it: At the end of the tarmac firefight, Makarov puts a bullet in Allen. He knew all along that the Ranger was a rat.

Allen’s body at the scene of the tragedy triggers Russian outrage and, eventually, a Red Dawn-style invasion of the United States.

Soon after, players are tasked with battling Russian invaders on American soil. The image of paratroopers floating down over the suburbs is, also, surprisingly powerful. As one of Modern Warfare 2’s dutiful soldiers, I picked off Russian invaders as they took cover behind pumps at a familiar-looking gas station. I defended a fast food restaurant from waves of foot soldiers.

Eventually, I climbed to the roof of a burger joint to take down an enemy helicopter. I watched the bird spin out of control over bullet-ridden chain restaurants, adding another plume of smoke to the already smoldering sprawl.

It’s all very realistic, and it’s doubly powerful because the game’s storyline could be pulled from today’s headlines.

Apart from the ability to crouch in a corner and cool off until your bullet wounds miraculously disappear, I don’t know if Modern Warfare 2’s world of violent unpredictability is really that different from ours. The game just compresses a century of violence into a few hours.

(Wired.com’s full review of Modern Warfare 2 will hit the ground later this week.)

Image courtesy Activision

See Also:

• Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles
• Limited-Edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 Boasts 250-GB Drive
• Dedicated Modern Warfare’s Servers Aren’t a Bad Idea
• Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 Top Xbox Live’s ‘Most Played’ List
• Activision Announces Call of Duty 4, N’Gai Not Happy
• Zero Punctuation Takes Aim at Call Of Duty 4