Irreverent Marvel antihero Deadpool may be gracing the Wii U, at least according to a listing by Amazon Canada. Spotted by NeoGAF over the weekend, the retailer has High Moon Studios' madcap action game pinned for the Nintendo console.

Unlike other platforms listed by the retailer, the release date is apparently a placeholder (December 31 2013) and the listing is minus details and box art. Even if a Wii U version is on the way, given the timing it seems unlikely it'll launch alongside the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC ones on June 25.

We've reached out to Deadpool himself (and Activision) to clear things up.

Just over 16 years ago, Shadow Warrior launched on PC. As the follow-up to 3D Realms' popular shooter Duke Nukem 3D, the two bore similarities; both donned an iconic first-person shooter style, substituting substance for violence at every turn. While Duke Nukem was a macho, chauvinist with all the ammo he could ever need, Shadow Warrior's main character was crass in a slightly different, albeit still offensive way.

The ninja assassin protagonist, Lo Wang, intended as a spoof on East Asian action heroes, was a walking racial stereotype. Lo Wang shouted "you want-a some wang?" with a mocking Asian accent, used chopsticks to catch flies, picked up fortune cookies in secret areas and fought sumo wrestlers. For many, Shadow Warrior was offensive and the game was criticized heavily for it.

Sixteen years later, Devolver Digital and developer Flying Wild Hog have announced a collaboration to reinvent Shadow Warrior; the spoils of the partnership due this fall on PC and in 2014 for unspecified next-gen consoles. While a modern Shadow Warrior will bare an updated skin, the "reinvention" isn't expected to be a departure from the original game's roots.

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Ubisoft has released a new trailer for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist, showcasing gameplay from its co-op narrative campaign and some gruff banter between Sam Fisher and his partner-in-stealth Isaac Briggs.

Splinter Cell is beefing up its multiplayer offerings for the latest series entry, as Blacklist will feature both a two-player co-op campaign and the returning Spies vs. Mercs multiplayer mode. We had a chat with Blacklist's lead co-op designer Richard Carrillo earlier this month, in which he confirmed that teammates will need to adapt to multiple playstyles in order to survive.

Blacklist's co-op element spans four mission types and 14 maps, and is playable online and in local split-screen. Splinter Cell: Blacklist is set to launch for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC platforms on August 20.

This is the second half of a two-part series chronicling the unfinished works of seasoned indie developer Terry Cavanagh. For the first half, click all up on this.

Terry Cavanagh's next confessionary Vine of unfinished projects started with a psychedelic look at his most recently abandoned idea, a first-person exploration game. "The idea was that'd be some way to manipulate your position in the game and access areas that were outside the game world; procedurally generated noise places of some sort," Cavanagh told us.

"I liked the idea of randomly filling a world with information and abilities and letting the player figure it out by just poking around in areas I hadn't specifically designed for them – making a genuine playable minus world. Anyway, I was working on this before GDC, and when I was there I saw another game that was basically doing the same thing but better, so I scrapped my game. It happens, no big deal."

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Sony's official E3 teaser video shows a blurry, black box. Is this the future of gaming, also known as Cube?

Sony's E3 conference takes place in Los Angeles on June 10 at 6 p.m. PT. Perhaps we'll get a clearer idea of what the PS4 looks like at that time, along with a price and release date. Right now we have "Holiday 2013," a timeframe that Sony settled on when it announced the PS4 in February.

Microsoft is prepping to reveal its own next-gen console – the new Xbox – tomorrow, May 21, at 10 a.m. PT. We'll have live coverage of that event.

Update: Joystiq reader rcoutant points us to an imgur album of the PS4 hardware in focus and really close-up, pulled right from the video.

Microsoft has filed a new trademark for the word "Forzavista." Using our detective-like intuition, we've determined it probably has something to do with the Forza Motorsport series, possibly something that will be revealed during tomorrow's "Xbox Reveal" event. Further speculation points to a renaming or expansion of the series' "Autovista" feature, which allows players to get up close and personal with many of the game's cars (including Halo 4's Warthog).

Okay, so it's not so much speculation as it is exactly what's described by the trademark itself. Specifically, the trademark refers to "A feature of interactive video game software which allows players to obtain statistical information of internal and external features of a vehicle and to virtually navigate and operate those vehicles."

Be sure to tune into Joystiq on Tuesday, May 21, for more live coverage of Microsoft's event than you can shake a stick shift at.

Warner Bros. revealed Batman: Arkham Origins is fronted by two of gaming's most prominent voice actors. Roger Craig Smith is confirmed as the caped crusader, and Troy Baker is his nemesis, the Joker.

If you don't recognize the names, you'll definitely recognize their previous work. Craig Smith's immense portfolio includes Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed, Chris Redfield from Resident Evil, and he's the current voice of Sonic. While he's never starred in anything Batman related, he does have superhero experience. It is for the other side, however; he's played Captain America in both games and animations.

Baker is similarly prolific. While he recently graced our screens as Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, his past work includes Sgt. Matt Baker in Gearbox's Brothers in Arms, Snow from the Final Fantasy 13 line, Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3, and Vincent from Catherine. When we profiled Baker around this time last year, he shared his love for all things Batman on the back of starring in Arkham City.

"Being a part of Arkham City was just incredible - because I'm a huge Batman fan," Baker told us, "And to play Two-Face and Robin after growing up watching The Animated Series was a banner moment for me."

The news follows apparent confirmation long-time Batman vocalist Kevin Conroy does star in Origins, but how he features remains to be seen. We know Origins deals with Batman's "initiation into that insane world" of the other Arkham games, so perhaps Conroy's role is something retrospective. Even if Conroy doesn't play the dark knight in any sense in Origins, to fans he's still the goddamn Batman.

Bat-click here to check out our preview and the new trailer.

Batman: Arkham Origins follows the world's most enduring vigilante after just two years on the job. The developers at Warner Bros. Montreal, taking over from Rocksteady Studios and their critically acclaimed construction of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, want to convey a "rawer, scarier Batman." He's all growl and grimace in the cutscenes, dangling squirming henchmen from clock towers until they turn verbose, but in play his rookie temper is more difficult to detect.

The prequel is a tricky proposition, especially when it concerns history that's been dissected again and again across comics, movies and games. It's harder to conjure narrative tension while it's colored by the inevitable outcome, and that draws greater scrutiny on mechanical expansion and refinement. Why does this younger Batman make for a better Batman game?

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In lieu of an E3 press conference, Nintendo is going to present a Nintendo Direct before E3, showcasing the "new Smash Bros., 3D Mario game, Mario Kart and other Wii U titles."

The company previously announced that all three games would be playable at E3. This means for those not attending the show, the games may be playable at Nintendo's special Best Buy E3 demo extravaganza (note: fullness of "extravaganza" is TBD).

The most recent Nintendo Direct held last week covered the company's summer plans and Hedgehog snuggles.

It's another familiar week of UK cha-... oh wait, it isn't.

After Dead Island: Riptide sliced through its competition for three weeks, this time it's dethroned by another follow-up in the form of Metro: Last Light. By debuting in top spot, it does what Metro 2033 failed to do when it placed fifth in 2010.

Chart-Track says Metro 2033 sold stronger than Last Light in its launch week. Back then, Metro 2033 was fighting March megatons like Final Fantasy 13, God of War 3, and Battlefield Bad Company 2. In contrast, May 2013 has been dead quiet - emphasis on dead.

Having said that, this week sees another new release in the top ten via Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity. The spinoff charts fourth this week. We expect the next 3DS Poke-game to do slightly better.

In other movers and shakers, Last Light only nudged Riptide into second place, making this week a 1-2 for Deep Silver and Koch Media. Tomb Raider drops out of the top five for the first time in its 11th week, slipping down to sixth. Meanwhile, Injustice: Gods Among Us and The Walking Dead (packaged retail edition) shuffle into eighth and seventh.

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This week on Stiq Figures, we're looking back at the surprise launch of the Sega Saturn at E3 1995. Namely, we're watching this strange promotional video for the system, which features clips of launch games along with creepy people that live in your nightmares.

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When Valve let up to 25 hardware development staff go in February, Jeri Ellsworth was one of them, and she was working on a pair of 3D augmented-reality glasses at the time called Cast AR. Ellsworth continued work on them with her new company, Technical Illusions, and recently let our friends at Engadget take them out for a spin at the Maker Faire 2013 event in San Mateo, CA.

Cast AR is described as a "projected augmented reality system" on the company's site. Ellsworth said she plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign later in the year to fund the project, with the goal of each kit adding up to less than $200 for buyers. The site notes plans to include a development kit with each pair.

Spicy Horse's Oz game combines the undead with "an Oz not of our remembering" – it's called OZombie, and it stars Dorothy, Toto, the Lion and the Tin Woodsman. The Scarecrow, who always wanted brains, is cast as the villain in this iteration, and instead of carrying around a basket, Dorothy gets a repeater.

Spicy Horse is unsure which game it will make next, OZombie or Alice: Otherlands, and it all depends on whether the studio can regain the Alice rights from EA. If Spicy Horse and EA work out a good deal, then Alice it is. If not, OZombie gets the green light and probably a Kickstarter.

"Actually, the more I think about it – and the more I see/hear feedback from you guys – the more I'm personally leaning towards Oz," Spicy Horse founder American McGee writes on the OZombie Facebook page. "There's so much fun stuff to explore, so many interesting characters and locations to discover. Wonderland will also be there, if not today, if not the next project, then perhaps the one after that?"

Keep in mind (and mind your brains) that OZombie is entirely separate from American McGee's Oz, the game Atari canceled in 2004.

Arc System Works announced Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN at its 25th anniversary festival in Yokohama, Japan today. While there are no details yet on what platforms the arcade fighter will appear on, the developer uploaded an introductory trailer to its YouTube channel.

The trailer features a battle between series mainstays Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske. Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN will, once again, be directed by Daisuke Ishiwatari, who also composed the song heard in the trailer. The video shows that the game will run on the Unreal engine and won't use sprites, a first for the developer. Additionally, while the character shown at the end seems to be Milla Rage, the character briefly reflected in her eyes appears to be Eddie/Zato-1.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Terry Cavanagh throws a ton of game ideas into the online hive mind, and it looks like he found one that sticks with Halting Problem (tentative title). Last week Cavanagh posted a set of Vines – "Pushing a block" and "Fistbump" – and this weekend he wrote in his blog that Halting Problem will probably be his "main focus for a while."

"A proper, meaty puzzle game is something I've wanted to make for ages, and I'm having lots of fun just messing around with the mechanics for this one and seeing what I can make out of them," Cavanagh said. It's inspired by DROD, but also things like Qrostar games, Zachtronic games, and my flatmate Increpare's games."

Cavanagh said he's really excited about this one – and so is that happy little sprite.

A Batman: Arkham Origins pre-order image on Amazon offers Deathstroke as a playable character via DLC. Check it out in a rolling image header here.

Batman and Deathstroke went head-to-head in last week's teaser video, but there was no word on how the striker of mortality would be incorporated into Arkham Origins. This could be a Catwoman in Arkham City situation, where she got an entire spin-off campaign, or it might be something entirely new.

One aspect of Arkham Origins is confirmed today – Kevin Conroy will return as a voice actor.

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.

I had my World of Warcraft year. In 2007, when 'The Burning Crusade' came out, the game clicked with me and it became almost the only thing I played for months on end, to the point where I started raiding with an up-and-coming guild. I know many other people who've had that year, with WoW or some other massively multiplayer game, before they lost interest, burnt out, or continued out of habit more than joy. In the last year or so, I've tried several massively-multiplayer role-playing games – Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World – and couldn't find that magic again. I could admire the design, but quickly lost interest in playing them. I was starting to think I'd never really like a massively multiplayer game again – and then, on a whim, I decided to check out Defiance.

Defiance is the main game I've been playing for two weeks now, and this may continue. It's not that it's less flawed than the other MMORPGs, but instead that the parts of the game that it focuses on hold much more appeal to me. To put it another way: Most games within this genre are focused on combat, and Defiance's combat is significantly more fun for me than its competitors'.

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