The Metroid Prime trilogy was praised by critics, but from the vantage point of director Mark Pacini, the games "sucked."

Speaking to Game Informer, the industry veteran--who left Retro Studios in 2008 after eight years with the company to open Armature Studios--offered a raw critique of Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

"I think everything we do sucks," Pacini said. "But that’s just me because I thought all the Prime games suck. At the end of the day all I see are all the bad things. Prime 2 was a blur to me. It was so quick, it was so fast. That thing just went out the door and it was a very divisive game. People either liked it or thought it sucked, and I can completely agree because I couldn't tell you what that game was because it happened so quickly. Prime 1 was the best designed game. Prime 3 I feel is the most fun one to play. Prime 2 is divisive. You either like it or you don't. That’s kind of the way I look at it."

Now with Armature Studios, Pacini and his team are working with Warner Bros. on Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, a Super Metroid-style game for 3DS and PlayStation Vita. He said his mindset is the same with this game; though he wants fans to enjoy it, all he can see now is the "crap" that's wrong with it.

"It is the same thing here with the Arkham game. All I see at this point, because we are knee deep, we're in the woods right now in development, and all I see is all the crap that's wrong with it," Pacini said. "In my gut I feel like, yeah, it’s going to be cool. I’m excited for it. But at the same time, I hope we don’t disappoint people and I hope that they like it. We’re trying our hardest. I would like to play a game like this, so hopefully everyone else will, too."

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate will launch October 25 alongside the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC game developed by WB Games Montreal.

YouTube user "Chris Gallizzi" has posted a video (via Kotaku) showing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim running with the Oculus Rift VR headset.

Two minutes of footage are shown, including sword combat and horseback traversal. "Playing Skyrim with the Oculus is a dream come true," said Gallizzi in the comments, before adding that the game's field of view with the VR headset "takes some adjusting depending on your sight’ I'm [nearsighted] so I had to adjust [the] FOV from 100 to 110 to make everything seem correct."

Playing Skyrim on Oculus Rift is currently made possible by using the free and open-source Vireio Perception driver, which has also been used to make Left 4 Dead, Mirror's Edge, and Half-Life 2 work with the VR headset.

Last week Bethesda said the Skyrim development team had moved on to their next project.

The Halo series Bungie created is one of the most well-known franchises in gaming. It has sold millions of copies and its fans reach the world over. Despite this success, Bungie does not believe it will be blinded by its past accomplishments for its all-new Destiny franchise.

"It's important to take pride in one's work, and we do, but I don't see anyone here resting on their laurels," Bungie explained as part of its latest Mail Sack. "The ancients are hell-bent on outdoing themselves. The newbies are possessed with a hunger to prove that they truly deserve to keep the company into which they’ve been invited."

"The bar gets raised every time Bungie ships a game," the comment goes on. "It's been said that the fall could kill you. You’ll be the judges of our vault."

Bungie also gave some specifics about what kinds of features and services players can expect from Bungie.net for Destiny. The developer said its core Halo-era ambitions for the service have not changed, meaning players will be able to track statistics, communicate with other games, and even speak with developers at Bungie through the platform.

"Bungie.net was designed to provide the players of Halo with a bunch of ways to extend and share their experiences. Those priorities won’t change with Destiny," Bungie said. "It'll be a great place to maintain a relationship with the people who are making this game, with the other people who are playing this game, and even with yourself as a character in this game."

The developer also teased some "interesting plans" for "how you can take that experience with you, wherever you go."

"If armed with the right gadgets, no matter where life finds you, the world of Destiny will be very close--at your fingertips, even," the developer said.

Bungie already has a dedicated Bungie Mobile application, currently available for Android and iOS devices as a free download.

Destiny is the first project in Bungie's ten-year publishing partnership with Call of Duty publisher Activision. The project is described as a "shared-world shooter."

The game is currently in development for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4, though Bungie's own preorder page suggests the game is also coming to Wii U, PC, PlayStation Vita, and the Xbox 720.

The Challenge Mode for Rayman Legends will be coming to Wii U this week, Nintendo has announced.

Designed by Ubisoft as an apology to Wii U owners for delaying the game, the Rayman Legends Challenges App will be released on the eShop for free on Thursday April 25.

The Challenges App will offer a series of daily and weekly challenges for between one and five players, and records will be stored on global leaderboards. Four levels will be featured, including the exclusive Wii U level "Murfy's Dungeon."

Rayman Legends will launch for Wii U this September alongside the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.

Ubisoft said earlier this month that the seven-month delay for Rayman Legends has allowed for the creation of 30 new levels for the game.

"We just wanted to reach out and let you know how truly humbled we were by the outpouring of support from the community and the fans about the announcement of the delay of Rayman Legends, and let you know that it definitely hurt us to see you guys so upset about the delay," said senior game manager Michael Micholic back in February.

Story-driven AAA games generally make no business sense, according to Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios founder Christofer Sundberg. An overall narrative is important, he argued, but providing player autonomy for the experience trumps.

Writing on Twitter, the designer offered up the question: "Why should a game have an end? Why bother about story when all data proves that players don't care?"

"6-12hrs story-driven AAA games makes no sense commercially any more," he said.

Some exceptions do exist, he said, like Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. But overall, he claimed that data has proven that players don't care.

"Story missions are not important," Sundberg added.

One example he provided was that of player engagement for his studio's 2010 open-ended sandbox game Just Cause 2. He said Avalanche Studios spent 3-5 months creating the game's story missions, but just 18 percent of players completed these.

One Twitter user posed a question to Sundberg asking if he thinks a game could get stale if there is no end; that is, if a player never reaches the conclusion, will they feel satisfied?

"Depends on what game you are making," Sundberg said. "Never underestimate the player's urge to grind."

Sundberg ended his comments by saying though he enjoys story in games, he doesn't see it being a part of successful games moving forward.

"For the record: I love a good game story. I just don't believe in it for the future," he said.

The ESRB (via CVG) has rated a version of The Sly Collection for PlayStation Vita.

Sony hasn't formally announced the title for PlayStation Vita, but released The Sly Collection (known as The Sly Trilogy in Europe) for PlayStation 3 in 2010. The compilation contained HD remasters of PS2 platformers Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

The ESRB rates the PlayStation Vita version of The Sly Collection as E10+, pointing out instances of crude humour in the game's dialogue and citing quotes ’you've got some fuzzy dice to come round here’ and ’back in my day we had enforcers that would make people pee their pants just as soon as look at 'em.’

A new title in the series, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, was released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita earlier this year.

DC fighter Injustice: Gods Among Us has dethroned BioShock Infinite's three-week stint as king of the UK charts.

NetherRealm's Injustice is the first fighting game to claim top billing in the UK charts since UFC Undisputed 3 last year. It's also publisher Warner Bros.' first chart topper since LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes.

BioShock Infinite drops to second place, with 3DS RPG Fire Emblem: Awakening launching in third. The RPG helped boost hardware sales, too, with a 49 percent week-on-week increase in 3DS sales thanks to the launch of the Fire Emblem limited edition blue 3DS XL.

Tomb Raider drops two places to fourth, with Defiance dropping one spot to fifth.

The regular crop of familiar titles fill out the rest of the top 10: FIFA 13 is sixth, Call of Duty: Black Ops II seventh, Luigi's Mansion 2 eighth, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 ninth, and Far Cry 3 tenth.

The Top 20 UK chart for the week ending April 20:

1. Injustice: Gods Among Us
2. BioShock Infinite
3. Fire Emblem: Awakening
4. Tomb Raider
5. Defiance
6. FIFA 13
7. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
8. Luigi's Mansion 2
9. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14
10. Far Cry 3
11. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
12. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
13. Assassin's Creed III
14. Skylanders Giants
15. Gears of War: Judgment
16. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
17. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
18. God of War: Ascension
19. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
20. Sleeping Dogs

Role-playing game Mother 3 has never been released outside of Japan, but that has not stopped dedicated fans from translating it in its entirety. The team of fans, which also includes a professional translator, has offered up its localisation of the game to Nintendo free of charge in a post on its development blog.

Mother 3 was never released outside of Japan.

Written under the handle "Mato", the blog post said, "I realize that localizing a game this size can cost a lot, so if it’ll help in even the slightest, I’ll gladly offer to let Nintendo use my text translation files for any use at all, completely for free."

The post also mentioned previous fan translations used by the game publishers, citing Ys: The Oath in Felghana as an instance where a fan translation was used in the creation of the localised version.

Mother 3 is the third game in the Earthbound series. The first and second games in the franchise were released outside of Japan as Mother and EarthBound, respectively. The third game was announced in 2006 for the Game Boy Advance console, although plans for localization in the West were never announced.

The World of Tanks account servers have been hacked by unknown parties.

Wargaming urges all World of Tanks players to reset their account passwords.

According to a statement, publisher Wargaming said that no financial information was accessed, but password hashes and email addresses may have been affected. The company urges all World of Tanks users to reset their Wargaming ID account password via the account management page.

Players who reset their password will get 300 units of World of Tanks' in-game credits. For more information on the game, check out GameSpot's coverage on the title.

Maxis will roll out the first major update for SimCity on April 22 that aims to fix a number of bugs and add some new features, the developer announced today.

To apply the update, Maxis will bring down all servers for a "few hours" beginning at 1 p.m. PDT that day.

"Choosing a time to issue a major update is never easy, but after looking our peak player time, we’ve concluded 1 p.m. PDT is the best window for us to make these improvements," Maxis wrote in the SimCity forums.

Update 2.0 for SimCity will change up the game so that Mayors will "drive their fancy cars to work" and take their helicopters, limos, or sports cars if the modules are present. It also color-corrects when in colorblind mode.

The update also aims to fix a number of bugs, the first of which has to do with issues related to cities not processing. Update 2.0 also speeds up the rate at which invitations are sent and received, addresses "unexplained fluctuation of tourists," and tunes casinos so gambling will be more profitable, among other tweaks.

For the full list of additions and tweaks coming to SimCity with Update 2.0, check out the forum post.

SimCity launched last month for PC and has sold 1.3 million copies to date. The game launches for Mac on June 11.

Bidding for the remaining unsold THQ franchises has closed, according to a legal document filed this week (via Polygon). Seventeen final bids for "certain" IP are expected to bring in between $6 and $7 million when the sale process closes by the end of May.

In February, THQ said it had received more than 100 expressions of interest for various titles. Bidding opened on April 1, with final bids required to be posted by April 15.

Franchises up for bidding include Darksiders (which Crytek USA is interested in), Red Faction, Homeworld, MX, and various other owned and licensed software, including Destroy all Humans! and Supreme Commander.

None of the bids were detailed in the document, though developer TeamPixel announced today that it had been outbid by a mystery party for the Homeworld IP.

"The auction for the Homeworld license ended April 15, 2013, and while we reached qualified bidder status for the bankruptcy auction, we were unable to raise the necessary funds to remain competitive against the other parties at the auction," the company wrote.

The Girl Scouts are piloting a merit patch for game development.

The badge is a collaboration between Women in Games International and the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, and right now the badge is only available for Girl Scouts in LA.

The course to obtain the patch will be specially designed, with WIGI developing a program that will meet the patch requirements of the Girl Scouts.

Speaking to Girl Gamer, WIGI vice president Amy Allison said "creating this badge will get young girls excited in technology and science and let them know that they, too, can have a career in the video game industry."

WIGI's overall aim is to use the Gamestar Mechanic to get girls actually developing video games, and to get the badge rolled out nationwide. The Boy Scouts currently have a merit badge for game design, though it does not require actual video game development.

Quantic Dream's 2010 narrative-focused Heavy Rain grossed $100 million, proving that developers should "stop thinking that innovation rhymes with unprofitable," according to studio co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere.

Speaking today during the Digital Dragons game festival in Krakow, Poland, Fondaumiere said, as reported by Games Industry International, that most publisher's would strive for the sales numbers Heavy Rain was able to achieve.

"These projects have been and are profitable, to some extent," he said. "I'll give you one example that I know about: Heavy Rain. Let's say it's $22 million to produce. With marketing it's maybe $30 million. With distribution, $40 million. Sony earned $100 million with the game, so it's very profitable. It's the sort of margin that most publishers would strive for, for any game."

The latest official Heavy Rain sales update came in September 2011, when Quantic Dream revealed the game had sold over 2 million copies.

Also at this time, Fondaumiere called the used game market one of the biggest problems in the industry, noting that the second-hand market cost Quantic Dream millions on Heavy Rain.

An update for 22 Cans' block-tapping Curiosity - What's Inside The Cube has added a string of in-app purchases to allow users to add and remove chunks of cubelets.

Curious Curiosity owners can now pay to add or remove blocks of 10,000, 100,000, and 500,000 cubelets. The effect is not instantaneous, however, and will instead take place when the game heads to its next layer.

10,000 cubes will cost $0.99/£0.69, 100,000 goes for $6.99/£4.99, and 500,000 cubelets will go for £7.49/$10.99.

"We don't know quite what will happen in this war of attrition," said 22Cans in the description for the update.

At time of writing, 13.7 million cubelets will be removed automatically from the next layer of Curiosity, while almost 4.7 million will be added.

"Curiosity may very well rapidly degrade to reveal its innermost secret or maybe the effects of automatically removing cubelets will be neutralised by players keen to keep Curiosity going," said 22 Cans.

Curiosity has been running since November 2012, and since its launch 260 layers of cubelets have been chipped off.

Gears of War: Judgment will add the Call to Arms expansion next week, Microsoft and Epic Games announced today. The game's second expansion, which adds three new multiplayer maps and a new game mode, will be available April 23 for VIP Season Pass holders and April 30 worldwide.

Blood Drive.

The content will be available as a free download for those who hold a VIP Season Pass and will sell for 1,000 Microsoft Points ($12.50) as an individual download. Season Pass holders also receive permanent multiplayer double XP.

New maps included with the Call to Arms DLC for Gears of War: Judgment are Terminal, Blood Drive, and Boneyard. According to Microsoft, they are set against the backdrop of the Locust invasion of Halvo Bay and include a mix of close quarters and vertical combat.

The Call to Arms DLC also introduces a new game mode called Master At Arms, a free-for-all gametype that challenges players with getting kills with each of the 20 different weapons without using melee techniques or grenades. Every kill will automatically advance players to the next available weapon until they have used each and become the "master at arms."

The Call to Arms DLC also packs in 10 new achievements worth a total of 250 Gamerscore.

The content follows last month's Maxim-sponsored expansion, which saw a new map (Haven) and game mode (Execution) added to Gears of War: Judgment for free thanks to its partnership with the men's magazine.

BioShock Infinite--the top-selling title of March in the United States--sold 878,000 units during the month, according to NPD data from Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz.

In a note to investors, the industry watcher said this figure is "a few hundred thousand" units above what the company had expected it to sell.

Creutz said BioShock Infinite has continued to sell at a healthy clip in April--thanks to strong reviews--and is likely to sell 4.5 million units (including retail and PC copies) in its first year.

The analyst also noted that Activision's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct saw "surprisingly strong" sales in March, where it was the ninth best-selling title overall. Specific sales figures were divulged.

Total software sales in the US for March were up 2 percent, representing the first month of positive growth since November 2011. Creutz noted that Gears of War: Judgment and God of War: Ascension sold a few hundred thousand more units than modeled (though they both still underperformed compared to previous franchise installments), but that non-AAA titles helped boost overall software sales in the month.

Creutz said fourteen March new releases sold over 100,000 units during the month, a feat that had not been equaled since November 2011 or beat since October 2009.

Computer peripheral maker Razer will honor an unauthorized coupon code it discovered this week that granted United Kingdom shoppers 90 percent off their orders. Writing on Facebook (via Polygon), Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan explained that Razer could legally cancel orders placed using the code, but won't because of its longstanding consumer-first policy.

"While we have the option of cancelling the orders legally, we’ve always had a customer-comes-first policy at Razer and in respect of this incident, we have decided to honor the orders that were placed using the unauthorized code by Razer fans buying single products for their own use," Tan wrote.

Honoring the 90 percent off code will result in Razer seeing an "insane amount of losses" due to products being sold significantly below costs, Tan said. Despite this, he explained that Razer wants to "do right by the community" and so will honor the codes.

"Our focus is on doing the right thing for our fans, the gamers and the community, not for resellers or users to profit from this," Tan said. "That’s not gaming, that’s not our deal."

Tan explained that it will take weeks--and months in some cases--to processes and ship all orders. This is due to the high volume of orders and the fact that many of the items users purchased were backordered to begin with.

"We appreciate everyone’s patience, and we thank all of our customers for their support. Game on," he wrote.

Razer recently launched its own gaming tablet, the Razer Edge.

The Jak and Daxter Collection will launch for PlayStation Vita in June, Sony has announced. The three-game bundle, which debuted on PlayStation 3 in February 2012, includes Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Jak 3.

The PS Vita version of the Jak and Daxter Collection will retail for $30, while the PS3 version is currently available at several retailers for under $20.

On PS Vita, the Jak and Daxter Collection will feature "authentically reproduced graphics" from the original games, as well as touch-based applications for certain minigames. In addition, the game has full Trophy support.

Tango Gameworks, the studio helmed by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, has a new announced survival horror title called The Evil Within.

The Evil Within logo.

The Evil Within is due to be released on next-generation consoles, Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3 in 2014.

’We’re incredibly proud to announce The Evil Within,’ Mikami said in a statement. ’My team and I are committed to creating an exciting new franchise, providing fans the perfect blend of horror and action.’

A live action trailer for the game was also released, showing a man wrapping his body in barbed wire and a four-armed monster being birthed in a pool of blood.

No specifics about the game have yet been detailed.

Bethesda has been teasing the game this week using social media service Vine. The publisher has previously said it will make "considerably" more noise in 2013.

UPDATE: Bethesda's Japanese site recently revealed more information on the upcoming game The Evil Within (Psychobreak in Japan), developed by the Shinji Mikami-led studio Tango Gameworks.

The horror game will use id Software's latest graphic engine called id Tech 5. The game's plot centers on the exploits of a detective named Sebastian, who is whisked away into a world of death and madness during a mass murder investigation. The game will return to classic survival horror game roots set by titles like Alone in the Dark and the first Resident Evil. Players must survive with what little resources they can scrounge up in the game world. The game's environments will shapeshift and transform based on their actions in the game. The game will also feature an assortment of traps that can kill players fast, but the flip side is that they can use them against enemies in certain situations.

The Evil Within will be out in 2014 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more information.