According to a (since removed) image found on Amazon and now posted on Examiner, the collector's edition of Dead Space 2 will include a life-size toy Plasma Cutter, in addition to a soundtrack CD, a DLC voucher, and a piece of artwork. EA announced its intention to produce a collector's edition for the sequel way back in January, when it sought ideas for pack-in items from fans. The plasma cutter happened to be on the list even then -- and we called it "outrageous."

Being a sort-of leaked item, EA hasn't officially announced its existence, and thus no information about its price is known.

[Thanks, DarkKainDrg]

In our review of Medal of Honor we said the "campaign is an exceptional experience, but the total package simply doesn't beat Call of Duty." The real drag was the game's "unremarkable" multiplayer, developed by DICE, not standing up to the single-player campaign or being able to headshot Call of Duty's twitch-based multiplayer, its clear inspiration and competition. Critical opinion of Medal of Honor is definitely mixed.

• Eurogamer (80/100): "As a game about the Afghanistan war that does its absolute utmost to avoid being about the Afghanistan war, Medal of Honor is arguably just a shooting gallery spliced with a fairground ride and a solid multiplayer accessory which owes a lot to Bad Company 2."
• 1Up (B): "But while the multiplayer is very much a worthwhile experience, it lacks the scope and grandeur of Modern Warfare 2, let alone the upcoming Black Ops. By comparison, the number of play modes and customization/rank options seem quite limited, and it's hard to believe fevered Call of Duty or Bad Company 2 players will break from their current favorites to dedicate themselves to Medal of Honor."
• Game Informer (70/100): "All the parts for a great multiplayer experience are here – class unlocks, a variety of familiar modes, lots of guns – but they don't come together in a way that makes Medal of Honor a must-play shooter. Military buffs may enjoy the game on some level, but in such a densely packed genre, EA must try harder to stand out."
• IGN (60/100): "Swinging wildly between the horrors and danger of war and unrealistic action movie moments and hampered by a surplus of boring scripted sequences, not even DICE's talented multiplayer designers are able to elevate Medal of Honor to something memorable."
• Giant Bomb (3/5): "But all of those scripting bugs and boring unlockables quickly add up, death-of-a-thousand-cuts style. In the absolutely ruthless world of online shooters, there's little room for weakness. Medal of Honor alternates between its derivative style and its annoying technical glitches way too frequently to rise above the crowd."

Everybody loves a comeback story, so let's hope this one starts for Stardock's Elemental: War of Magic with the hiring of Derek "Kael" Paxton as the studio's senior producer. Paxton, who's best known for the popular Civilization series Fall from Heaven (über mods he created using the game engine), will be in charge of Elemental's ongoing development and expansions.

The welcome news comes as Elemental tries to right itself from the consequences of a "disastrous" launch. Stardock's PR rep Stephanie Tinsley Schopp told Joystiq, "There will be a lot of news coming from the studio in the next few months, don't count us out."

With Paxton joining Stardock, it will be interesting to see if the company makes use of Fall from Heaven, perhaps turning the Civ mod into a standalone game running on a proprietary engine. Though no plans have been announced, it's an intriguing possiblity.

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In his Medal of Honor review, Joystiq's Andrew Yoon writes: "Recalling the terminology, remembering the technology and feeling the burden of the mission, the campaign is a true learning experience -- one that I didn't expect, but ultimately enjoyed." This statement is a testament to EA and Danger Close's ability to successfully execute the so-called "historical fiction" element that was so key to the game's design and marketing. Andrew hadn't learned to be a soldier, but he was drawn into the "perceived realism" much in the way that any celebrated war movie or book has sucked in its consumers. Certainly, games' ascent into the high art of "realism" has rasied some issues for a medium commonly associated with kids stuff.

If you're concerned that war (video) games are becoming too real, especially for the kids who get their hands on them one way or another, give former U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer Benjamin Busch's editorial on NPR a read. "The game cannot train its players to be actual skilled special operations soldiers, nor is it likely to lure anyone into Islamic fundamentalism," Busch writes of Medal of Honor. "It can grant neither heroism nor martyrdom. What it does do is make modern war into participatory cinema. That is its business."

Busch's problem with Medal of Honor is in its depiction of the War in Afghanistan -- a war that's obviously going on "right now." He believes that it "equates the war with the leisure of games" (perhaps distorting how best for a civilian, including those considering enlistment, to understand war), and he argues that, despite "the fully articulated violence," Medal of Honor can't possibly emulate the reality of combat. "There is a truth common to all, and that is that playing war in any medium is not combat, and for a gamer, it's not even political. It's just sedentary adventurism in need of a subject."

"The power of controlling your situation, to be able to stop the war and rest, is something that our soldiers are quietly desperate for. For those who patrol the valleys of Helmand, it is a way to impose limits on the uncertainty of war and the constancy of vulnerability," Busch reminds us. "A video game can produce no wounds and take no friends away."

The game industry has fired off another preemptory salvo in the looming Supreme Court battle over California's violent video game law. Writing in the Orange County Register, Activision's chief public policy officer, George Rose, declares the law to be "a textbook example of government overreaching that is stubbornly trying to make sure blind zealotry is allowed to trump reason." Apart from the usual First Amendment argument, Rose also notes that the law would put unfair legal and financial pressure on store clerks, who could be held legally responsible for selling an inappropriate game to an underage customer.

"Enact this ominous law, and you leave it for the clerk to guess whether a game is covered by the law or not because it won't use the ratings system our industry developed," writes Rose, adding that clerks could be faced with losing their jobs or finding a way to reimburse their employer for incurred fines.

Rose also states that, according to the Federal Trade Commission, the ESRB rating system has successfully prevented underage customers from purchasing adult games. He elaborates that the "egregious violent games" referenced by politicians are either rated AO or aren't rated at all. Either way, retailers routinely do not stock such games.

Finally, Rose notes that the ESRB system is a privately funded program, whereas Governor Schwarzenegger's law proposes government funded enforcement. "California is a state with a history of budget shortfalls, IOUs, furloughed workers, closed DMV offices, shuttered courts, squeezed school districts where children wait weeks to start school, pummeled university budgets, stretched health care resources and cities without enough money to properly fund their police and fire needs," writes Rose, "They all can use state dollars that would be wasted here."

It's not quite an EA-NFL-level blockbuster deal, but THQ has entered into a multi-year licensing agreement for exclusive video game rights to Deepak Chopra's teachings. The deal with rights holder Curious Pictures extends to pretty much every platform imaginable, including XBLA, PSN and WiiWare.

Clearly not meant for THQ's "core" catalog (though yogic ab-building minigames aren't necessarily off the table), the Deepak Chopra games will fit into the publisher's "Casual and Lifestyle Portfolio." Said THQ exec Martin Good, "THQ continues to expand its casual games portfolio and has grand plans to invigorate the lifestyle category with this game."

Dr. Chopra is the author of more than 55 books on "mind-body health, spirituality and peace." You probably won't be able to shoot things in his games, or even stomp on them.

To inform ... mid-90s Genesis game audiences (apparently) about Super Meat Boy's "hella tight controls" and "educational" worlds, Team Meat and director James Id have put together this explosive commercial for the XBLA (and eventually PC and WiiWare) platformer. Do the math!

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DeNA, a Japanese mobile internet company, is set to purchase mobile publisher ngmoco, best known for Rolando and Topple, for a whopping $400 million. The combination of the two companies, according to the announcement, will create "the world's largest mobile social games platform company."

The ngmoco shareholders and employees will receive $300 million in cash and securities, with an additional $100 million contingent on performance milestones.

Gamasutra points out that this is just the latest acquisition by DeNA, which has slowly been making selective purchases in the western market. This is also just the latest social media purchase with an incredible dollar figure attached. Disney recently purchased Playdom for over $500 million, while EA acquired Playfish late last year for $300 million. -- oh yeah, and there's also that rumored $100 million investment by Google in Zynga. Now, let us all hold a moment of silence for sanity.

EA has tasked Danger Close and DICE with the formidable challenge of not only rebooting the Medal of Honor brand but making it a direct competitor to Call of Duty, arguably the biggest franchise on the planet. Instead of taking a more fanciful approach to "modern warfare," EA's offering zooms dangerously close to ongoing combat operations. Set in modern day Afghanistan, Medal of Honor is inherently provocative, if only for setting alone. But is it good? That depends on what you're looking for.

Single Player

Medal of Honor is essentially two games in one, with two developers and two engines (Unreal for campaign; Frostbite for multiplayer) powering the distinctly different components of the package. The decision to splinter the development of the game has a certain logic to it: single-player gamers are not necessarily multiplayer gamers, and vice versa. Presumably, EA's approach allows each mode to be optimized for their respective audience. As it turns out, this method makes for a rather confusing end product.

When viewed as a standalone offering, Danger Close's campaign is one of the finest shooters I've experienced in years, successfully finding the middle ground between a realistic military simulation and a great piece of entertainment. The story, which covers two action-packed days in the US military's ongoing battle against insurgents in Afghanistan, masterfully switches between the perspective of an elite group of soldiers (Tier 1), and the Army Rangers, and offers a genuine, realistic look into the struggles of being a modern warrior.

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Hey, do you like to zap helpless humans with lightning? Then you're probably a super villain. Cool -- and we've got the perfect Facebook game for you: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Friend Challenge. Seriously, it's all about zapping helpless people ... and your friends! It really scratches that sadist itch, trust us.

Developed in-house at Konami, the Facebook game allows you to unlock various bits of content from the console game including "screenshots, videos and items" as you recruit Facebook friends to your army and level up your character. Sorry, it doesn't look like these unlockables are on a two-way street -- performance in the Facebook game doesn't impact your Castlevania: Lords of Shadow game.