Rocksteady Studios co-founder and game director Sefton Hill shared his recipe for making Arkham games at DICE 2012. Beyond the basic ingredients listed, all you'll need is a major license, a supportive publisher and millions to fund the project.

Sefton's Arkham recipe:

• Make the game instantly fun and accessible. "We believe it's our job to entertain," Hill said, adding that the free-flow combat of Arkham was meant to instantly convey the feeling of being Batman.
• Deep core mechanics, with a contant, incremental challenge to maintain engagement. "We developed combat by introducing new enemy types ... it keeps giving you more, it keeps challenging you."
• Complementary Orthogonal Design. Boiled down, it's that systems like navigation, combat and story "all have their own distinct and strong uses." Essentially, he encouraged designing complementary design elements that don't step on each other.
• Authenticity. "The restraints of the character define the character." Hill said certain elements may seem like a pain the ass, but that one must embrace those constraints. The fact that Batman can't kill anyone was something the team had to maintain at all times. "It stops us from falling back on a lot of game cliches." Takeway: Celebrate and explore the limitations of characters and what makes them unique.

So, there you go. Oh, you'll also need an engine. We're sure if you write a really nice letter to the guys at Epic, they'll let you license the Unreal Engine at a good price.

You could spend the rest of the day accompanied by the sounds of indie games, for a relative pittance. The second iteration of the Indie Game Music Bundle is available for the next week, offering a Humble-style collection of game soundtrack downloads.

For your [any amount of money] you get the soundtracks to Aquaria, Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP, To the Moon, Jamestown, and Machinarium. Hold on -- before you start throwing money at this, there's more you need to know. Pay over $10, and you'll get a pile of additional soundtracks, including Mighty Switch Force and Cat Astro Phi. Physical bonuses will be conferred upon especially high rollers.

OK, now you can get your money out.

We expect Mass Effect 3 to have action, a rich story, customizable weapons, co-op mode and intelligent enemies -- but that doesn't mean we don't want to see these things in action, right now. With the launch of a new website, Mass Effect 3 is showing off some of its core features in five new videos, with "Adrenaline Pumping Gameplay" shown above, and the other four below.

If you weren't expecting Mass Effect 3 to have things like "a story" or "enemies," maybe don't watch the videos and save the surprise for the game's release. Also, retroactive spoiler alert.

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Did you think it was weird that Dead or Alive games often featured totally out-of-place Aerosmith songs? We always did, but that music choice was fully, definitively justified by Tomonobu Itagaki in a speech at DICE 2012.

Itagaki explained that the first PS2 release of Dead or Alive 2 (which only came out in Japan; the one at the US PS2 launch, DOA2 Hardcore, was a remake) was unfinished, and sent to manufacturing under false pretenses. A manager approached him and asked to borrow a copy of the in-progress game to play it. "Instead," he said, "it was taken into a factory for production on that day without me knowing it." The team only had two and a half months to work on it. "To be sure, the company made a huge profit."

The game had relatively low-quality, jagged graphics and a lack of extra content. Itagaki became depressed about the unfinished game. "I thought I would quit making games," he said. "Some of the staff, including me, were so depressed by this fact." In this state, he stayed home for "three or four months," drinking and repeatedly watching ... Armageddon, singing along to the sappy "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" with his daughter, which he admitted was a "stupid life." "If I close my eyes now and recall Armageddon, tears still come out," he said.

So the secret to the Aerosmith songs in those DOA games is that Itagaki seriously, unironically loves Aerosmith. The real surprise is that Bruce Willis never made it into any of the games.

It's the end of the day, you've set aside work for the night and just enjoyed a delicious dinner of something breaded, fried and dipped in a seasoned dairy product, and now you need something to do -- something that doesn't require too much movement. Steam has predicted your desires with today's Daily Deal, Rage at 50 percent off, for $15.

If you don't already own it and want to give id Software's shooter a try, now might be a good time to pick up Rage. It's not called the Daily Deal for nothing.

Electronic Arts Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown has unexpectedly left the company to join Polycom. Brown will take the role of both CFO and COO at the communications company.

"I am delighted to join Polycom at such an exciting time," said Brown, in a read-between-the-lines press release issued by his new employer. "With Polycom's software strategy, open platform approach, broad ecosystem of partners, and strong brand loyalty among its huge installed base, I believe the company is ideally poised to capitalize on this new model."

This ends Brown's second tour of duty at EA. He returned as CFO in 2008 after having previously left as Chief Operating Officer of EA's Redwood Shores Studio. CFO, COO... it appears Brown will continue his quest for that elusive vowel to become a CEO.

With Brown exiting, EA announced other changes to its executive team, including Mark Tonneson as SVP and Chief Information Officer. EA has "begun a search for a new CFO," with Ken Barker serving in the interim.

The world hasn't converted entirely to a Kickstarter-based economy yet -- Activision's fiscal 2011 earnings are up again, with net revenues at $4.76 billion dollars (vs. 2010's $4.45 billion), exceeding its most recent outlook. Activision claimed the number one console and handheld publishing spot in both its fiscal Q4 (ending December 31) and the year of 2011.

What drove this success? Like you don't know, but: Call of Duty. Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling game in terms of dollars, and Black Ops was #5. Skylanders also contributed, as it was the #8 best-selling game in the fourth quarter, and best-selling kids' game of 2011.

Digital revenue broke records again, with over 34 percent of that $4.76 billion net coming from "digital channels." No, you aren't forgetting some breakout XBLA hit from Activision -- those digital channels are COD map packs and WoW.

Nordic Games has revealed the contents of its Alan Wake PC editions -- collector's and standard -- which are set to hit Steam on February 16 and retail shelves on March 2. The standard edition includes the full game and The Signal and The Writer DLC packs on one disc, the original soundtrack on a second, six post cards, seven stickers, a poster and a manual.

The collector's edition includes everything in the standard edition, plus audio commentary and background information from developer Remedy Entertainment that can be switched on during the main game. It also has "The Alan Wake Files," 144 pages of evidence complied by in-game author Clay Steward, and a third disc with a making-of feature, the history of Remedy, trailers and behind-the-scenes content.

Alan Wake is set to hit Steam in downloadable form on February 16, at $30 for the standard edition and $35 for the collector's edition, though without the discs and "premium packaging" promised in both retail forms.

Double Fine will be able to fund at least two and a half adventure games and/or put an awful lot of money into creating an incredibly extravagant one, as the developer's Kickstarter project has just topped $1 million dollars. After being announced late last evening, the project's page already reflected a number exceeding the goal of $400K within just over eight hours.

With another 33 days to go, and an incredible amount of momentum as is, we're thinking the sky's the limit for the Double Fine folks. And they'll get to that sky in their fleet of private jets, all custom designed to nest within one another like the characters in Stacking, and Tim will be the mothership. It's all so clear now! What have we done?!

Both hardware and software video game sales were down by a great deal in January, according to the latest report from NPD. Both categories dropped 38% year over year in the US, and video games sales in total dropped from $1.14 billion in January of 2011 to $750 million this past month. NPD's Liam Callahan attributes the drops to a lack of new launches: Last January, Microsoft's Kinect propped up hardware sales, and Dead Space 2, LittleBigPlanet 2, and DC Universe Online did the same for software, but there weren't equivalent launches in the market this year.

The full list of the top ten titles is after the break. Just Dance 3 held down the number two spot, again landing in front of the very popular Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Zumba Fitness 2 also made it into the top ten, but Activision's Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is likely the most important game for January.

In addition to landing on the list at 8th, Skylanders is seeing huge sales in the accessories category, making up 22% of total accessory sales overall. The game's single character pack was also the best selling accessory during the month of January, and these numbers should bode well for the series and its future iterations.

Finally, despite that big drop in hardware sales, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg points out that the Xbox 360 has remained the highest-selling console on the market, selling 270,000 units with a 49% market share.

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The signs of a good interface aren't always visible. An elegant in-game display susses out the sweet spot between education and economy, making it an art that is often overlooked by design. And when games aim, claim or clamor to be cinematic, life bars and scores tend to be the first things tossed out as distracting clutter. The traditional HUD is fading from view.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier occupies the same fictional space as Call of Duty, adding a glossy veneer to war and sexing things up with tantalizing gadgets. But Ubisoft's take on modern warfare isn't about seeing -- it's about reading. Oh, there's no shortage of cover-based shooting and GET-TO-THE-RPG-ing in here, but those actions are informed throughout by a busy interface. In comparison to many "immersive" blockbusters, you're getting a library and not a pamphlet.

In practice, this means Ghost Recon is about learning to decipher information quickly, and drafting attack blueprints on the fly. Despite being on the action-heavy -- pardon me, streamlined -- spectrum of console games, Future Soldier uses its hologram-heavy premise as an excuse to fill the screen with data. Warning: It requires reading comprehension, which is a rather extravagant demand when some of the most popular games just want you to strap in and see the pretty sights whizzing by.

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It seems that some PS3 users are running into trouble with Gotham City Impostors, and we're not referring to all the fake Batmen clogging the streets. According to posts on the Gotham City Impostors forums, some PS3 users are unable to unlock the full version of the game. Even after paying for the title, some find themselves stuck with the trial version.

A forum administrator notes that Warner Bros. is working on the issue with Sony and asks that users experiencing the problem respond to this thread with their PSN ID and the country from which they are playing. In the meantime, if you haven't already purchased Gotham City Impostors, we'd recommend waiting until the issue is resolved.

The XBLA/PSN reimagining of BurgerTime needed a little more time on the grill before hitting WiiWare, but now MonkeyPaw Games is ready to serve BurgerTime World Tour to a hungry audience on a plastic tray all right these food metaphors are falling apart.

We'll have to warn you about this week's 3DS eShop game, lest you get unreasonably excited. Maru's Mission is not about Maru the cat. It is a cute-looking ninja action game, though. But not about Maru. Sorry!

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As far as the first part of that headline goes, yeah, we know -- truly gasp-worthy. Activision head honcho Bobby Kotick revealed plans for a new Call of Duty in the company's quarterly financial report, and that Activision is aiming to grow the Call of Duty Elite service year. Activision is "hard at work on Elite 2.0 with several features to be included in the next Call of Duty release," Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg added.

Kotick also reiterated that Diablo 3 would launch this year -- though we're assuming it won't make its previous "early 2012" date, unless Activision's idea of early in the year is within the first six months. Diablo 3 has undergone a substantial beta run, and it's still underway.

"Our extraordinary employees around the world are focused on making 2012 another great year for our audience and stakeholders," Kotick said. "Blizzard Entertainment plans to have multiple highly-anticipated titles to release, including Diablo 3, and Activision Publishing expects to release a new Call of Duty game. In addition, Activision Publishing expects to continue to grow Call of Duty Elite and launch Skylanders Giants."

Update: A slide in Activision's presentation (seen above) shows the company is aiming for a Q2 launch for Diablo 3.

Call of Duty Elite, the community portal for Activision's perennial shooter is apparently doing gangbusters, according to the publisher's 2011 earnings report. The report states that Elite has pulled in over 7 million members as of January 31.

Even more impressive: over 1.5 million of those are premium subscriptions, available as part of the $100 Hardened Edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 or as a separate $50 purchase. Paid membership grants a few benefits, most notably a free pass and early access to Modern Warfare 3 DLC.

We'd say the service probably qualifies as a success at this point, at least from Activision's perspective.

Sony has posted a how-to guide on downloading PSP titles to the PlayStation Vita and, along with it, a list of the 275 PSP titles and Minis that will be compatible with the Vita at launch. Obviously, it's a pretty hefty lineup, though some favorites are certainly missing, including Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Lumines and others.

That said, Sony promises more titles will be added in "the coming weeks." Head over to the US PlayStation Blog for the current list. And, before you ask, yes, of course Dragon's Lair is compatible.

Update: A couple of industry tweets reveal that some games not mentioned on the official list are already compatible with the Vita, notably Valkyria Chronicles 2 and PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. It would appear that Sony's official list may not be entirely comprehensive. Then again, the public won't actually get its hands on the Vita for another week, so maybe there's still some tweaking going on.

Remember Super Mario Bros. Crossover? We hope you wouldn't be able to forget something like that -- it's the browser game that lets you go through Super Mario Bros. as Ryu Hayabusa, Contra's Bill Rizer, Link, and others.

Developer Jay Pavlina just released version 2, and it's a heartbreakingly beautiful work of retro-gaming. Now there are multiple versions of all the characters, including NES, SNES, and Game Boy styles, and you can cycle randomly through versions of all the levels in those styles.

Best of all? Among those styles are Demon Returns and Super Demon Returns, the Super Mario Bros.-style game from the DS's Retro Game Challenge 2. So you can totally play as the tank from Blaster Master in Super Mario Bros. levels that look like Retro Game Challenge.

The characters include Mario, Luigi, Link, Samus, Simon Belmont, Mega Man, Bass, Bill Rizer, Ryu, and Sophia the 3rd -- all with alternate looks, and character-appropriate special abilities. Did we mention this runs in your browser, and that therefore you could be playing it right now?

You may not have played Toki Tori on the Nintendo Wii when it helped launch the WiiWare digital distribution service back in 2008, but Two Tribes is hoping you'll give its sequel a shot when it arrives on Wii U. The studio announced intentions to bring the sequel to Nintendo's next console in a blog post this morning, citing the recent information dump on the Wii U's internet connectivity as its reason for signing on -- Two Tribes is dedicated to releasing Toki Tori 2 digitally, it would seem!

"The 3DS eShop has been a big step in the right direction compared to the Wii and DSi online shops, and it would be strange if they did not at least match it's functionality on Wii U. Since Toki Tori 2 is designed to be a downloadable title, these things are vital to making the correct choice of which platforms to develop for," the post reads. And though Two Tribes has ideas for how best to use the WiiPad beyond its bevy of buttons and triggers, the concept sounds very early in the production stages (if even there).

The company does promise to offer a WiiPad-only option for playing the game, should you be simply unable to stop playing during sojourns to the water closet. It also outlined hopes for a level editor. All of this is of course highly nebulous considering that the Wii U has yet to receive even a release date, so don't go getting your hopes too high just yet.