Eat Sleep Play, which will shortly ship Twisted Metal, has reportedly laid off eight employees. The Salt Lake City Tribune also reports that co-founder David Jaffe is out and expected to pursue "casual games." Jaffe responded to the "rumor" of him making casual games after Twisted Metal as "highly exaggerated."

Eat Sleep Play now has a staff of 26 and will transition to iPhone and iPad development. "It's a platform that is in our pockets almost 24/7. It's kind of the size and types of games we're playing," said other co-founder Scott Campbell to the Salt Lake Trib. "You can certainly reach a lot more people. That's pretty exciting for us."

Campbell confirmed Jaffe's departure and said that the company and Jaffe are "going down two separate paths." Twisted Metal is Eat Sleep Play's second project, following the disappointing reception and sales of Calling all Cars. We've contacted Jaffe for clarification of his current status.

Update: David Jaffe has confirmed that following the release of Twisted Metal (along with sticking around for balancing and bug fixing), he will step away from Eat Sleep Play. Jaffe also confirmed an undisclosed number of layoffs. ESP's office is located in Utah, while co-founder David Jaffe currently resides in California. Jaffe cited issues with directing a big game from a distance and a fondness for internal game development as reasons behind his decision to leave.

The Twisted Metal director plans to open a new studio in San Diego and says he is "talking2peeps" for his new company to tackle some "big, huge next gen game ideas" or even "stuff in the browser space" that he labeled as "gamer centric."

Risen 2: Dark Waters, the pirate RPG coming in April from Piranha Bytes and Deep Silver, is getting a collector's edition in the UK only. We find that part a little strange, considering pirates are supposed to be pretty good at traveling overseas. Sorry; we had to.

The UK collector's edition will include a "making of" DVD, a soundtrack CD, double-sided poster, pirate flag, amulet, art cards and three Risen 2 stickers, all for £69.99. The UK version of Risen 2: Dark Waters drops anchor on April 27, while the US version drops April 24.

Have you felt like your Rocksmith-ing hasn't been as full of rock as it could be? Been having problems trying to navigate all those menus? The latest update aims to address your concerns and more.

Perhaps the biggest feature being introduced is Lag Correction, an option that allows users to tweak sound and the speed at which notes are displayed on the screen. Another fix eliminates errant scores achieved in Guitarcade through exploiting the pause button -- pulling an ill-intended Peter Moore, if you will. The precision tuner is also now more accessible and available prior to any song or event outside of multiplayer.

Hit the break for the full list of changes.

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Confession time: I have not finished Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Over the last several days, I've poured over thirty hours into the enormous world. After twenty or so, I resolved to avoid secondary tasks and focus on primary quests, hoping to finish the campaign before composing this review. And then, after reaching a milestone in the story, it occurred to me: I don't want to do that.

Please understand, I have no desire to ruin this review for our readers. It's just that I don't want to ruin the game for me. To plow through Reckoning with no regard for the enormous array of tasks and quests, to ignore its hidden secrets, is a disservice to its lovingly crafted world.

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The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in San Francisco held a Kickstarter fundraiser last year to put money together for a public space, and that round of fundraising resulted in a successful gallery showing of some old early 3D games. Now, the museum is at it again, trying to raise money directly for the next six months.

It's called the "Level 2" campaign, and the Museum is trying to raise another $20,000 for various events and programs. Anyone who donates more than $25 will be able to get a gift of a sticker or a t-shirt. If you don't want to go through PayPal, the museum is accepting donations directly at its Oakland location as well.

The museum has been holding video game tournaments, programming classes (seen above), and open hours every week, and is now home to the GamePro archives. The donation campaign will run through March 31.

The latest in the ongoing Iwata Asks series has the Nintendo exec inquiring about the development of Resident Evil: Revelations with the team at Capcom. The lengthy interview covers a wide range of topics, from the inspiration for the 3DS iterations of Resident Evil to precisely what the essence of Resident Evil is.

When asked this very question, the team mentioned a word coined internally at Capcom, "bioreal." Essentially, anything that happens in Resident Evil title has to make sense within the universe Capcom has built. For example, a zombie might be reanimated by a virus but not, as Iwata pointed out, by magic. That said, the team admitted they don't concern themselves too much with "biorealism," and often include more fantastic events as development draws on.

One of the more candid moments in the interview came courtesy of assistant producer Tsukasa Takenaka. "Capcom is always like that," he said, "we make the main events interesting and then fill in the gaps with forced logic." Even Iwata was taken aback, saying, "Ohh... You just come right out and say it?" Check out the full Iwata Asks article for more on Resident Evil: Revelations and its focus on bringing horror back to the series.

Xenoblade Chronicles "the game" is definitely coming to the US Wii on April 3, but Xenoblade Chronicles "the box art" is more of a vague idea at this point. Nintendo is allowing fans to choose the inside portion of Xenoblade's reversible box art via a Facebook photo poll -- of the four photos shown below, whichever has the most "Likes" will become the US game's reversible image:

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Sticky Bees is very simple, and a little bit mindless -- something that developer Fourfire Studios seemingly acknowledges with the characters' vacant, tongue-out expressions. It's mindless in a good way, though: you can play and enjoy yourself, and not really have to think about what you're doing at all.

Sticky Bees, created by Scribblenauts lead designer Matt Cox, is a game in which you move a bee around with your finger in order to slam him into other insects, killing them instantly. Swarms of butterflies, fireflies, and other flying insects will come in from edges of the screen, and you run into them. Simple and satisfying.

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Dust 514 will support the use of USB keyboards and mice. That's good news for EVE Online players looking to expand the wealth of their galactic empire by partaking in some mercenarial dirty work on the PS3 shooter.

Whether using a keyboard and mouse will provide a mechanical edge over players using a controller remains to be seen, but we feel like the type of input method used isn't as crucial when you're being bombarded from orbit by planet-sized gunships.

After the European launch of Twisted Metal was stalled last week, a new date has been announced by creator David Jaffe. The European release has been pushed back to March 7, according to Jaffe's Twitter account, thanks to localization issues and cuts that had to be made in cutscenes.

Last week, Jaffe assured players that Twisted Metal's story -- surely its most integral component -- would remain intact despite the alterations.

Let's skip the formalities and just say it: BioWare wants you to buy Felicia Day for Valentine's Day. No, not buy something for her, but purchase Felicia Day herself. And no, not in any illegal or gross sense of the word -- Dragon Age: Redemption, the six-part webseries available on Machinima's YouTube channel since October, is coming out in DVD form on February 14, complete with behind-the-scenes extras, a commentary track and blooper reel.

Dragon Age: Redemption parallels the story in Dragon Age 2's digital add-on, Mark of the Assassin, which features Day as an elf who assassinates things. Or, as Flatiron Film Company describes both forms of media, Felicia Day cosplaying!

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With the recent talk of game cloning, it's easy to forget that taking an idea from another game and running with it can be not only inoffensive, but beneficial.

When done the wrong way, cloning lets one company divert revenue and attention away from the original, nearly identical source. But when done well -- when it's "inspiration" and not outright copying -- everyone's happy. People who liked the original game get to play something that takes what worked about that game, and builds on it in interesting ways. The developer of the new game gets a proven framework upon which to apply its own ideas, and a built-in fanbase to sell to. And the originator gains the prestige of having its game become a genre-defining work.

That's the case with Sega's Rhythm Thief: The Emperor's Treasure for 3DS. Sega's musical adventure wears its influences on its sleeve, and is better for it.

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Ubisoft Reflections' next effort will be aimed at Kinect, it seems. Artist Joss Scouler's LinkedIn account reportedly listed an unannounced Kinect title in the works, but it has since been removed from the profile. Scouler has been with Ubisoft Reflections for over five years and and helped ship the studio's most recent console game, Driver: San Francisco.

"After just finishing Driver Wii as lead artist and spending time helping finalise the artwork for Driver: San Francisco, it is onto the next project on 360 Kinect which looks to be very exciting indeed," Scouler's entry previously read. Eurogamer managed to spot the unaltered profile, which pegged him as art lead on the Kinect project.

We've contacted Ubisoft for a statement and will update if we hear back.

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Indie devs take note, submissions for IndieCade's 2012 "Festival of Independent Games" are now open on the event's official website.

IndieCade's track record is stellar, giving budding designers and developers the exposure their hard work deserves and the money their growing debt so richly desires. Past winners include darlings like Limbo, VVVVVV, and Superbrothers' Sword and Sworcery EP. Of course, bills only get paid if the games launch -- unlike Fez, which by our heart's count has been in development for the last seven hundred years.

Teams that submit a game will receive a main festival pass and an invitation to a day-long networking and workshop event. Games selected are set to be featured during the annual IndieCade Festival from October 4 through October 7.

Microsoft clearly has no care for the silly paramaters we call "seasons," as its launching Microsoft Flight on February 29, bucking the original "spring" launch window. Microsoft Flight's official site will be hosting downloads of the free application starting that Wednesday -- no other distribution channels are named, but we suspect it'll also be up on Games for Windows Live's Marketplace as well.

That guess' accuracy is bolstered by the news that the "Hawaiian Adventure Pack" wil be made available as well on the 29th, coming in at $19.99. The pack is said to include the "remaining Hawaiian Islands, a new plane, and 20 new missions," should you have already exhausted your enjoyment of the other content, perhaps during the simulation's beta period. More details on the DLC can be found just after the break, including two additional planes, priced at $7.99 and $14.99 (for regular and "deluxe" models, respectively).

At this point, we were gonna make a flippant joke about Flight being little more than flying simulation, but then we thought about that Louis CK bit and started feeling all guilty. So, here we are. Either way, how about those DLC prices, eh? Madness!

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With the advent of antibiotics, platinum credit cards and thermal underwear, the purist's notion of natural selection remains a long-forgotten, useless ideal -- at least until the aliens attack. Sequel to a 2002 Half-Life mod, Natural Selection 2 will act as a survival-of-the-fittest simulation for both sides: Players will inhabit the bodies of aliens and Marines to see which traits will be passed on to the following generations. We're guessing large teeth and precise trigger fingers will make the cut, but not necessarily on the same species.

Natural Selection 2 is set to launch this summer, but those who pre-order will get early access via the beta on Steam.