This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.

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2012 may not be remembered as a fantastic year for pure western role-playing games (especially without a Skyrim to sweep the end-of-year awards) but it's been a great year for me as a video game fan. Why? Because many of the "best games of the year" may not be RPGs, but they've adapted some of the best components of RPGs to become stronger games.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, for example, is one of the best-received games of 2012, due in part to its use of RPG mechanics. Tactics games are often associated with RPGs (especially Japanese-style tactics games) but the connection isn't always so concrete with "western" games. For example, I don't really qualify the original X-COM: UFO Defense as an RPG, due to its too-large squads filled with personality-free squaddies, whereas Jagged Alliance 2 certainly fit the mold.

XCOM tweaks the initial game's form in ways that align with traditional role-playing games. The squad size is limited to 4-6 characters, traditional RPG numbers, and only having one base means you rarely need large numbers of squaddies – I never had more than 15 at once, and even that was high due to playing on "Classic" difficulty. It also slightly decreases the importance of the strategic decision-making level, putting the focus on the characters in the field.

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After some miscommunication with publisher Sega, Platinum Games has announced that Anarchy Reigns will finally launch in the west this January. It will be available in North America on January 8 and Europe on January 11 for $29.99 and £19.99/€24.99, respectively. Anarchy Reigns has been sowing seeds of institutional discontent in Japan since last July.

Platinum's latest is a free-for-all brawler starring several of the developer's characters, like Jack from MadWorld and Bayonetta from that game with the gun-boots.

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This week's Super Joystiq Podcast is all about summoning music and sound effects on the hosts' whims.

Games are up first, with Richard and JC joining Xav to discuss Code of Princess, Silent Hill Book of Memories, Borderlands 2, and Unfinished Swan.

The second segment kicks off a new recurring feature, Joystiq Profile, where we get to know the staff. First up is Jess Conditt talking about her history of gaming and how she found herself becoming a member of Team 'Stiq.

News is packed as always with Alexander, Jess, Jordan, and Mike Suszek hitting the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077, Good Old Games coming to Mac, Nintendo investigating child labor, Steam Greenlight Software and Concepts, Lightbox layoffs, tumultuous basketball releases, and Ubisoft suing the Black Eyed Peas.

Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast:

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Details about each segment are available after the break.

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There's an interesting easter egg in the new Borderlands 2 DLC, Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty. The iconic Big Daddy (AKA Mr. Bubbles) from the BioShock series makes an appearance at some point in the add-on adventure and – well, we don't want to ruin it for you. In the interest of spoilers, we've embedded the video showing off the Pandora version of everyone's favorite child social worker past the break.

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Chicago, one of the most successful rock bands ever, adds three tracks to the Rock Band music store next week. From Chicago albums 2, 4, and 10 come "Make Me Smile," "Feelin' Stronger Every Day," and "If You Leave Me Now."

All the tracks will also earn double coins for Rock Band Blitz player.

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Minecraft 1.4, AKA the Pretty Scary Update, arrives on October 24. Until then, the 1.4 pre-release is available now for download on developer Mojang's site. Remember, this isn't the public update, so if you'd rather avoid the risk of installing-at-your-own-risk then you only have to wait five more days.

The Pretty Scary Update brings with it a namesake amount of changes and additions, including a Wither Boss, Witch creature, direct access to server mods, anvils for repairing and combining items, and a whole lot more on top. The Minecraft Wiki has a thorough tab on what's popped up in prior snapshots, and so offers an extensive look at what players can expect from 1.4.

Nintendo's ever-vigilant quest against piracy continues, as Justin Success Brooks of the United Kingdom has been charged with the fraudulent sale of counterfeit Nintendo games, according to the Croydon Guardian. The 41-year-old man was caught in an investigation conducted by Nintendo and the UK Interactive Entertainment association. The two groups purchased games from suspect outlets, eventually finding their way to Brooks.

Operating between 2009 and 2011, Brooks allegedly made an estimated £600,000 (over $962,000) selling "thousands" of counterfeit Wii, DS and DSi games. All told, Brooks has been charged with seven counts of fraud, including "two counts of fraudulent trading, two counts of supplying an article to use in fraud, two counts of unauthorised possession of goods bearing a trademark and one count of unauthorised use of a trademark."

Brooks has pled guilty to all counts. He has been granted bail and awaits sentencing, which will take place on November 9. Always remember, Mario is watching.

Welcome to Living in the Past, a weekly column about what's new in old games. Now get off our lawn.

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The Namco Generations series brought us cool reimaginings of Namco's ubiquitous arcade games, including Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and Galaga Legions DX. It can also be assumed to retroactively include games like Pac-Man Championship Edition that came out before the series was named.

Namco Generations appears to have come to an end now – at least Namco's been quiet about it – and that likely end came before two of the announced Generations games could make it to release. For some reason, Namco planned updates for relatively obscure arcade games Metro-Cross and Dancing Eyes alongside the Pac-Man and Galaga flagships.

Above, you can see what the company had in mind for the PS3 update of Dancing Eyes (embedded from a third-party Youtube channel since Namco made its own video private). The PS3 game is sort of like Qix, except instead of surrounding rectangular spaces in a flat, stark vector retroscape, you're a monkey cutting pieces off a girl's clothes. The surprise isn't that it was canceled this year; rather, the surprise is that someone at Namco thought this was a viable game concept on two separate occasions.

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Dave Rushton, the founder and president of Utah-based Sensory Sweep Studios, has been sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined a total of $1.2 million in unpaid wages to more than 100 employees, according to the Associated Press.

This judgment resolves a lawsuit filed in 2009 by the US Department of Labor, which enjoined the sales of several Sensory Sweep Studios games after employees claimed they hadn't been paid in more than 100 days. Additionally, the employees alleged that their 401(k) money had been stolen by the company.

Rushton has already served jail time for other charges relating to Sensory Sweep. In 2010, Rushton plead guilty to one third-degree felony charge of failing to file taxes and one second-degree felony charge of "engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity," says the Salt Lake Tribune. In addition to prison, the sentence also included a 72-month probation and 200 hours of community service.

Sensory Sweep Studios was primarily responsible for developing ports and licensed games for the Nintendo DS, such as Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Imagination Invaders, though it also developed some console games such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, or the XBLA version of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting.

Bad news for Kickstarted turn-based haunted house project, Haunts, as the game has ceased production. According to Mob Rules Games head Rick Dakan, both of Haunts' programmers have left the project, with the lead programmer moving on to Google, and the other taking a new job as well. Neither programmer is able to work on the project in their spare time.

"The game as it stands has all the systems in place, but there are a lot of bugs," writes Dakan on Kickstarter. Neither he nor the game's lead artist are programmers, leaving the project in dire straits. Implementing online play "took three times longer than estimated" and, unfortunately, will require additional programming to make existing levels work, even when played offline. Dakan is currently shopping Haunts around, specifically to a studio "owned by some old friends and coworkers," in hopes of eventually seeing the project finished. Dakan admits that, even should the studio agree, it would still be "months before anything came out."

Dakan elaborates that "bets" were made in developing Haunts, but they "haven't paid off like we needed them to," and that "things were constantly going from bad to worse." The $28,000 raised on Kickstarter has been spent, he writes, "but I will personally refund out of my own pocket anyone who wants to withdraw their support, no questions asked." Backers seeking refunds may contact Mob Rules through Dakan's Kickstarter email. Dakan concludes by reaching out to anyone willing and able to help complete the game, though he's hopeful the current partnership that Mob Rules is pursuing will work out. Thus far, the majority of those commenting on Kickstarter are not asking for a refund.

The video above showcases some of Haunts' gameplay as it currently stands. Mob Rules has also put together a summary of the game's ten chapters, along with associated screens.

Ken Rolston of Morrowind, Oblivion and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning fame is now the director of design at Turbine, the company announced this morning. Rolston's responsibilities will include leading "the vision and the implementation of all aspects of game design for Turbine."

Rolston is joined by three others in the announcement: Alan Villani, formerly of Mortal Kombat dev NetherRealm Studios, is now Turbine's vice president of technology and "will be responsible for [the] digital technology platform that helps drive online engagement and monetization."

Zynga alumni Jai Singh joins as the executive director of technical operations, in charge of Turbine's technical infrastructure and network operations, while ex-Petroglyph Games member Demetrius Comes fills the role of executive director of engineering, where he will oversee "all engineering functions for the studio's project development team."

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Eurocom's nostalgia-stuffed shooter, 007 Legends, receives its free Skyfall downloadable content on November 9, at least on the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network. The DLC is coming to other platforms further down the line. As previously revealed, the PS3 will also receive exclusive Skyfall multiplayer content in the form of two of the film's characters.

007 Legends is now available for queen and country, as long as your country is in North America or Europe, and your queen is a PS3 or Xbox 360. The game infiltrates PC on November 2, and sneaks over to the Wii U sometime in December.

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Sony today announced 2000 planned job cuts in Japan via an "early retirement" scheme. The Next Web reports the layoffs are expected to hit the PlayStation manufacturer's head office the hardest, with 20 percent of the employees there leaving by the end of the year. Sony believes this move is going to save the company 30 billion yen ($378 million) annually from next year onwards.

The move is in line with the expected 10,000 layoffs Sony announced earlier this year. In August, Sony revealed a $312 million loss for Q1 2012, with $45 million lost across its gaming division. Shortly after, Sony closed its Liverpool studio in the UK. Earlier this year, Sony also closed Zipper Interactive and BigBig Studios.

The company's struggles have also resulted in the closure of its lens factory in Minokamo, where 840 employees are based. Some of the factory's operations are being transferred elsewhere, but not all, so it's unclear how many layoffs the closure will result in.

Ubisoft announced this morning that "Gangnam Style" will be available as downloadable content for Just Dance 4 this November. The song, which has become an international phenomenon, has nearly 500 million views on YouTube.

On that note, Psy is quoted as saying, "Gangnam Style and Just Dance 4, I can't wait to see all the YouTube videos." Spoiler: It's going to be a lot of people doing the horse dance.

One of the words that doesn't show up in Ubisoft's announcement is "exclusive." We've reached out to Harmonix to find out if it's also working on some Gangnam Style for Dance Central 3.

Update: We checked with Ubisoft to see if the DLC included the moves from the famous music video or simply had new choreography.

"The chorus of the song has the precise moves from Gangnam Style," a Ubisoft spokesperson informed Joystiq. "The verses highlight some of the video's moves but also include [Just Dance 4] moves."

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The Fall 2012 Update currently rolling out removes Twitter and Facebook from the Xbox dashboard, and Microsoft have confirmed the apps are officially being 'retired.' Speaking to IGN, Microsoft said it's "retiring the Facebook and Twitter apps," although the company didn't comment regards whether or not they may ever return. Microsoft is recommending Xbox users instead access Twitter and Facebook via Internet Explorer 9, which is included in the Fall Update.

It was three Fall Updates ago when Twitter and Facebook arrived on Xbox 360. Yes, nearly three years ago when everyone logged in on that first day to tweet or post a status update from their consoles, then immediately reverted to however they tweeted or updated their statuses before. Ah, memories.