How a joke led to Warren Spector learning something new about his own game.

"In the first game, we did what I call Choice and Consequence Lite," says Warren Spector as he demos Epic Mickey 2's newly announced Fort Wasteland level. "We didn't want to scare 'normal' people, so we lightened up a little bit. This time we're not doing that."

Fort Wasteland is an oddly appropriate place to demonstrate what Warren Spector promises to be a more lasting style of player choice. This part of the game is a dark and gloomy take on Frontierland, the Old West-inspired chunk of Disneyland where saloons, steamboats, and simulated wilderness dominate the landscape.

If during your platforming adventures you see a high point you want to reach and no way to get there, you can cut down a tree and use it as a ramp to easily walk up to that previously inaccessible point. The only problem? That tree is down for good. Make a habit of this and you're effectively clear-cutting the American West. You've become your own Disney villain, and no amount of leaving that level and coming back to it will change things.

"We didn't do that in the first game," says Spector. "We didn't ever say, 'You can't undo this.' We let you get all the thinner rewards, and then you could go back and get all the paint rewards in the same place."

This gets me wondering: How do you stress-test a system like this? How do you ensure these permanent choices don't eventually break the game?

"Brutal testing!" Spector responds. "What you do is test the extreme cases. In Deus Ex, I made people play through without ever using a weapon. I made them play through and kill absolutely everything that moved. Or get through the game without ever using a skill, or an augmentation. If you do that, you can be pretty certain that anything in the middle is gonna work."

"Publishers hate that," jokes Spector. "It's really scary, but people are going to figure out how to do things that are impossible. In Deus Ex, we had so many people figuring out how to get outside of the gameworld that we had to put crates and ladders outside the maps so they could get back in."

Back on the subject of Epic Mickey 2, Spector remarks, "You can literally get through the game without ever using paint. Or, without ever using thinner."

Half-jokingly, I immediately respond with, "How about both? Can you get through without using paint or thinner?"

"I don't think you can," Spector responds. But he sounds uncertain. It's a crazy idea, when you think about it. Paint and thinner are the yin and yang of Epic Mickey, your two most central tools for reshaping the Wasteland as you see fit. Sure, you can get through the game without using one. But both?

This is exactly when Irvin Chavira chimes in. As a QA tester on Epic Mickey 2, Chavira has to break the game so that it can be fixed. If there's anyone who knows the boundaries of practicality in Epic Mickey 2, it's him.

"You can," Chavira counters, matter-of-factly.

"Are you serious?!" Spector exclaims from across the table, practically spitting out the sandwich he's been working on in between discussions about the game.

"It won't be 100 percent, because if you want to get 100 percent you have to make certain decisions [involving paint and thinner]. But I think you can get through the core path without using either paint or thinner," says Chavira.

"That's the beauty of this stuff!" remarks Specter, beaming from ear to ear. "When games are open-ended enough that the people who work on them don't know if something's possible, that's pretty magical."

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The co-op shooter formerly known as Overstrike shows Insomniac branching out with its strengths firmly in mind.

After years of developing exclusives across three generations of PlayStation hardware, Insomniac has ventured into multiplatform territory with Fuse, an upcoming co-op shooter in the vein of Borderlands. It's Insomniac's first attempt at multiplatform development as well as its first new console IP since Resistance. Not easy work, and a task made more challenging by the fact that a small army of fans is upset over the stylistic changes made to the game since it debuted last year under the name Overstrike. It's too bad, really. There are so many people focused on what Fuse isn't, when what it is happens to be pretty damn fun.

Spend a few minutes playing Fuse, and it's clear that Insomniac isn't ready to abandon what it does best. Just like Ratchet and Resistance before it, Fuse features an arsenal of wild and ridiculous weaponry. The story goes that the US government has spent years experimenting in secret with a powerful alien substance called fuse, combining it with earthly materials to create a stockpile of devastating (and slightly absurd) firearms. After a rogue paramilitary organization decides to steal this fuse technology, a task force (hint: that's you) is called in to track it down.

Fortunately, the fight is evened somewhat because these four player characters also have access to fuse weapons. Each player uses a different type of experimental weapon, creating a class system where everyone has unique abilities to help the team out in his or her own special way. You've got Dalton, who can fire massive short-range energy pulses and put up barriers to block enemy fire. Naya can activate a stealth cloak and use her warp rifle to coat enemies in a substance that triggers a lethal singularity (which can bounce from one enemy to another like a freaking pinball). Izzy can use her shattergun to freeze enemies into crystals ripe for shattering as well as fire healing rounds to help her teammates. And finally, Jacob has got a crazy crossbow called the arc shot that can pin enemies to walls and (when properly charged up) melt those enemies into gooey puddles of lava.

These varied weapons lead to an interesting system where players are using their abilities in unison (like Jacob firing face-melting bolts at a turret gunner from behind the protection of Dalton's shield) while still racing each other for the kills necessary to build up their own unique skill trees. The usual co-op mechanics are there, like reviving fallen teammates, but it's that way of toying with enemies as a team that sells the co-op experience. There are a lot of combinations to work with, and figuring them out in the heat of battle is a lot of fun.

Of course, not everyone will play through the campaign with a full roster of four players, and that's where the character-swapping, "leaping" mechanic comes in handy. Rather than choosing your one character at the start of the campaign, you can hit a button at any point during the action to instantly jump into the shoes of another character of your choice. As long as there's one open slot on the team, you can either jump around by yourself or play what Insomniac calls a "musical chairs" game of three human players constantly leaping around to the one open character.

The whole thing represents the sort of natural progression that you'd expect from Insomniac's increasing emphasis on social experiences in its games. What feels like a larger change of pace, though, is the game's sense of humor. Fuse maintains a focus on humor like the Ratchet & Clank series, but it's a more subtle, almost dry sense of humor. Rather than pratfalls and sight gags, it's dark jokes about how the all-business Dalton doesn't care whether a mysterious Raven device contains "the head of Walt Disney," followed by a disconcerting glow and Jacob quipping, "That…doesn't look like Walt Disney's head." It's an M-rated game, and the humor comes from how the characters react to these dangerous situations.

In that way, Fuse is almost a blend of Ratchet's humor and Resistance's seriousness. The things it shares in common with both those games, however, is its sci-fi nature and whirlwind tour through various settings affected by a powerful threat. In your journeys tracking down Raven, you'll venture all over the world, from a palace in India to Raven's intimidating headquarters in the Swiss Alps. It's almost got a Bond film quality to it in that regard--its heroes are constantly on the run after an elusive organization operating in numerous parts of the world.

One caveat is that the cutscenes Insomniac showed were far from complete, so it was tough to get a full picture of what this game's sense of style and personality will be like. But with that said, I went back and rewatched that original Overstrike announcement trailer, and the general look wasn't that different from the version Insomniac presented. The humor was a bit subtler than what the trailer offered, but it honestly wasn't that far off from what I saw from Fuse.

It's a good thing, too, because Fuse looks great with its brand-new engine driving all the action. This is a game that deserves a distinct personality, and it doesn't seem that Insomniac has forgotten that personality is something it does quite well. Fuse is schedule for release sometime in 2013.

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Insomniac CEO Ted Price talks Fuse, escaping the ghost of the PlayStation 2, and the state of single-player-only games.

GameSpot: You said that moving in a more grounded direction from Overstrike to Fuse allowed you to make the weaponry more imaginative. Was that a situation where you wanted to draw a starker contrast between the characters and the weapons?

Ted Price: I think that's part of it. Making the weapons more exotic really helps set the game apart. Even though we're set in a grounded world, we're trying to make it very clear that this world, because of this alien substance fuse, and because of these crazy weapons, this story with organizations that you won't see in our own world, it stands apart from a lot of the games that are based on real events from today. We at Insomniac love doing the more fantastic, out-there sci-fi stories and scenarios. So by moving in this direction, it was sort of a nice mix of that grounded but out-there sci-fi approach that we love to take on all of our games.

That sort of exotic weaponry is very much a part of the studio DNA at this point, but in Ratchet and Resistance you were firing those weapons at aliens. In Fuse, the enemies are human beings. What's the balancing act like for you guys to make sure that the weapons are still wild and crazy but you're not creeping out the players?

Ha! I think it's OK to creep out the players. It's not that we're avoiding any kind of creep-out factor. We're doing what we think is most fun with hard-hitting weapons that do the unexpected. It's important to note, too, that the enemies we're fighting are humans, but you'll see some humans using fuse weaponry too.

So it's a level playing field? Both sides are using fuse?

Pretty much, yeah. That evolves as you move through the game. You don't immediately face enemies who are using fuse weapons. It's tied to the story. This organization, Raven, steals the source of fuse and begins using it in their own creations. Raven is a paramilitary organization and a weapons manufacturer. They've known about fuse, and they've prepared for it. That's why we see this increasing emphasis on fuse used by enemies the further you move into the game.

In terms of the game's personality, you mentioned that Fuse has a more mature sense of humor--not quite as slapstick as Ratchet. More subtle and dry. That's a lot trickier to do. It's hard to do that sense of humor and not have it go completely over the audience's head. Describe the challenge of that.

The challenge is doing just what you said, having a sense of humor that isn't campy but isn't so subtle that players miss it. And then integrating it into real-time gameplay so players hear emergent dialogue throughout the game that's relevant to what they're doing but also entertaining.

I think that [writer] TJ Fixman and [creative director] Brian Allgeier have worked really closely with all of our designers and gameplay programmers to figure out good places to expose more of our heroes' personalities through humor and through humorous interactions that are much more of a departure from the standard military jargon that we hear in other third-person shooters. We hope that it keeps it more entertaining while informing the players about backstory for each of these characters.

One of the things that Insomniac Games has always done really well, in my eyes, is atmosphere. Resistance 3 stands out as one of the best examples of the past few years. How do you maintain those same standards when you're bouncing around the world, going to all these locations, and you can't just do that one style really well?

One aspect of Resistance 3 was that we were traveling to different locations, and we focused on making sure that the story was well integrated into those locations. The same thing's happening here. There's a reason you're going to those various places that we gave a tease of today. It's all driven by fuse and your ultimate mission to bring it back. So making sure that the environments don't feel like window dressing is enabled by using fuse in those environments, helping to tell a visual story about fuse and how Raven is using it. How their use of it is evolving throughout the game.

It's important to make those living, breathing environments impact the players just as much as the combat and characters. I'm really proud of what the environment team has been doing, how they've adhered to the story and they're telling it in a way that doesn't require words.

You mentioned in your PAX keynote address the importance of knowing your audience and focusing on a specific part of the market. Is this a new market for you guys, or are these the people who've played Ratchet over the past 10 years and now their tastes have matured?

Both, I suppose. It works well for the people who grew up with Ratchet and love the crazy weapons but who are looking for a more grounded experience--but with a hint of that humor you don't find in many games. For the Resistance players, this is the kind of weapons-focused shooter that they love, but it introduces a multiplayer aspect--the four-player co-op with unique characters--that enhances that kind of gameplay and takes it further. It's a very Insomniac experience that our previous players will appreciate; it has a lot of hallmarks of who we are and how we design things.

After Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One being a co-op game, this being a co-op game, and Outernauts being a Facebook game, is Insomniac a multiplayer/social gaming company from here on out?

I can't imagine that any game we'd do from here on out will be single-player only. The game world has changed. As gamers, we've always been social, but thanks to the way technology has evolved, it's much easier for us to play together. It's much easier for developers to create experiences where you can play together. So we want to encourage that with all of our games. Ultimately, in my opinion, it's often more fun to play with a friend. However, with Fuse, we do focus heavily on the campaign and ensuring that if you're playing by yourself, you'll have just as much fun as you do with your friends. We spent a lot of time on our AI bots and making sure they're solid and they do what you expect them to do at the right times.

We understand that a large portion of players are interested in that single-player experience. A lot of us gamers are interested in both. I love single-player games, but I also love multiplayer games, and I think that Fuse offers you the opportunity to do both without having to skimp on either side.

You're debuting a new engine and new development tools with Fuse. The timing seems interesting to debut that new tech at the tail end of this console cycle. How equipped are you guys to deal with the next console cycle?

It's important to note that we've worked on this new tech for a while. It wasn't an overnight decision to start working on new tech now. It's been several years in the works, and it was the result of having a toolset and an engine that was a carryover from PlayStation 2.

When we built Resistance: Fall of Man, we were building it on the back of the tools approach we had used on PlayStation 2. We inherited a lot of baggage with that. Long load times and long build times in particular. Tools that didn't necessarily decrease iteration time. We had wanted to make the shift for quite a number of years. Going multiplatform was the big opportunity for us to do that. It didn't have anything to do with any new approaching consoles.

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E3 2012: We take a look at how Halo 4's narrative-driven episodic content Spartan Ops plays out. Also: more info on those nasty Forerunner enemies.

Microsoft is a tease. The slowly unraveling thread of information about Halo 4 has so far yielded near naught on one of the game's major selling points: the return of the one and only M. Chief. (That's short for Master Chief, mind you, not Mr. Chief. Although that's also acceptable.)

Microsoft's E3 2012 press conference kicked into action with a frenetic, kickass trailer detailing Halo 4's single-player campaign, but since then we've heard nothing on the game's narrative elements. (It has all been about competitive multiplayer.) That is about to change--the publisher finally allowed us a sneak peek into its efforts with story. No, not with the single-player campaign. That's obviously something they're saving for later. But we did get a chance to see how storytelling will work in the second part of Halo 4's multiplayer component: Spartan Ops.

For clarification, Halo 4 will ship with two multiplayer elements: War Games, the competitive multiplayer, and Spartan Ops, a weekly episodic narrative-driven cooperative multiplayer. Spartan Ops will take on the role of a second campaign, with a separate storyline and separate protagonists. The campaign will follow the story of Majestic Squad, a Spartan squad from the UNSC Infinity on the planet Requiem (those of you who finished Halo 3 on Legendary will know what this is about).

Through a weekly series of cinematic episodes, each episode containing five linear story missions, this second campaign will be playable both as single-player or cooperatively with up to four players. (Spartan Ops also supports matchmaking, just in case you misplace all your friends.) The best part? You don't have to pay extra: access to Spartan Ops is included with Halo 4.

OK, now to the fun stuff. We were shown the fifth mission in the first episode of Spartan Ops (for clarity, Microsoft is currently working on just one season of Spartan Ops). By the way, this was all hands-off, so we won't be able to talk much about how the game feels to play, but hey, it's Halo, so you should already have a pretty good idea. In the mission, our team was charged with gathering information on a Covenant archaeological structure on Requiem. 343 Industries made it clear that none of what you'll see in the single-player Master Chief campaign will repeat itself, either in Spartan Ops or in the competitive multiplayer.

After encountering a pesky squad of Covenant (standard Grunts and Elites), our team cleared the top level and encountered a couple of Forerunner shields. Once fired upon, these triggered a call to arms for the Forerunner troops, who apparently don't like anyone touching their stuff. What you can expect from these bad guys is faster, angrier versions of the Covenant enemies, with a slight orange tinge. First there are the Crawlers--small, pack-hunting creatures that can scale walls and ceilings and look like overgrown sewer rats. These guys are easy to kill on their own (one or two shots does just fine), but watch out if they come at you in a pack. (Oh, and they attack by shooting weird orange lasers.)

The team suddenly realizes that the Crawlers are materializing too quickly--they're being spawned by something. Enter another Forerunner enemy: the Watchers. Watchers are tactical enemies that act like AI support for the Forerunner troops. They take the shape of what looks roughly like a giant flying motorcycle and hover above the fight, ready to spawn more enemies. Taking Watchers down is a priority; otherwise you're going to be facing a never-ending battle. However, they're smart: they learn your shooting tactics and react in different ways once you try to take them down a second time.

Finally, one of our team picks up a new Forerunner weapon. Called a scatter shot, this is kind of like a shotgun (powerful at close range) but with more firepower and a cooler-looking body. These are handy against the Knights--another type of Forerunner enemy that physically look like Elites but way more badass.

After a drawn-out fight dealing with these three kinds of Forerunner enemies, our team finally manages to dispense of the last one and achieve its objective: the obtainment of a Forerunner artifact that will be taken back onboard the UNSC Infinity for closer observation.

A note on the difficulty levels in Spartan Ops: 343 Industries stressed that all players in the game must play on the same difficulty level. Which, when you think about it, is only fair.

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E3 2012: We take a look at a demo of Skylanders Giants and learn some details about what it offers in terms of gameplay and new toys.

Last year, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure captured the hearts of children and the wallets of their parents, with its collectible figurines that come to life in the game. Today at E3 2012, we got a look at Skylanders Giants, the upcoming sequel that introduces some new elements and, of course, a slew of new toys to collect. It may also put an undue strain on parents' purse strings and lead some of them to stop indulging their children's Skylanders habit.

As the demo began, a new Skylander figurine named Jet-Vac was placed on the Portal of Power peripheral, and the birdlike character then appeared in the game with a rousing cry of "Hawk and awe!" The terrain in which Jet-Vac began his journey looked much like the inviting grasslands of early Skylanders levels, and the gameplay appeared to be pretty similar to that of the first game. Pushing a block aside revealed a previously hidden tunnel, and we were told that Giants introduces these kinds of secret areas, encouraging exploration and giving players more reason to return to levels.

Soon, we got a look at one of the new "light core" Skylanders; a variation of Prism Break from the original game. As this special version of Prism Break was brought close to the portal, crystals in the figurine's arms began to glow. It was a neat visual touch that is sure to enchant many children, and it doesn't require batteries; the power comes from the portal. In addition to this nifty figurine feature, light core characters will also have powers unique to them in the game.

After advancing a bit, the player placed another new Skylander named Pop Fizz on the portal, bringing the demented goblin-like creature into the game. Pop Fizz was described as an alchemist, and at one point he drank from a flask, temporarily mutating himself into a bigger, more powerful version of himself that was described as a berzerker. Pop Fizz was clearly capable of dealing with foes, but when he came upon an area that was particularly crowded with enemies, the player took the opportunity to switch to one of the titular giants, placing a significantly larger figurine on the portal. The giant's name was Tree Rex, and he resembled a mech that had been built from large living pieces of wood.

Like his figurine counterpart, the in-game Tree Rex was much larger than a normal Skylander, and his size enabled him to yank boulders off the ground and toss them at enemies. We initially wondered if the added physical power of giants wouldn't essentially make smaller Skylanders obsolete, but both Tree Rex and Bouncer, a robotic giant we saw a bit later, appeared to move more slowly than normal Skylanders, which could be disadvantageous in some situations.

We learned that Skylanders Giants raises the level cap for characters from 10 to 15 and that this applies both to new Skylanders and to those you may have used in the original game. The upgrade system has been tweaked a bit; whereas before, you reached a point where you had to choose between one path of upgrades or another for each Skylander, in Giants you can switch back and forth between upgrades. And although Skylanders is clearly designed primarily with young people in mind, Giants will add a range of difficulty levels in an attempt to accommodate those players who may want more of a challenge.

But what about the toys? Having physical figurines that store the progress of your characters is part of Skylanders' allure, but Giants may push things a little too far. The game will introduce eight giants (one for each element), eight new Skylanders, and 24 "series two" characters, which are new figurines of characters who appeared in the first game. Of course, you can still use your existing Skylanders, but series two characters will have powered-up upgrades, which is sure to make children long for the new versions. Additionally, there will be eight light core characters, four of which will be variants of series-two characters (like Prism Break), and four of which will be variants of new Skylanders.

Of course, variations on existing characters are nothing new to the toy industry. There are any number of versions of characters like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in Star Wars toy lines, and having the original He-Man toy didn't make most Masters of the Universe fans want Battle Armor He-Man any less. So in a sense, putting out new versions of characters players have already grown attached to sounds like good business sense.

But it also seems a bit crass, and the fact that series-two characters have more powerful upgrades than their predecessors sounds designed to get kids to disregard their existing toys and encourage their parents to buy a whole new set of Skylanders for them. We can't help but wonder if parents will be willing to purchase new assortments of Skylanders so soon after sinking considerable amounts of money into building their children's collections for the first game, and if those many adults who also fell under the first game's spell will feel the same impulse to collect 'em all that they did the first time around.

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E3 2012: Guardians of Middle-earth is a console-only action-strategy title in the vein of League of Legends and Dota 2.

Over the years, Monolith has been responsible for such four-letter acronyms as FEAR, JACK, and NOLF--and now you can add MOBA to that list. The studio is here at E3 2012 showing Guardians of Middle-earth, a Lord of the Rings-inspired take on the action-strategy genre recently popularized by the likes of League of Legends and Dota 2.

Guardians of Middle-earth features a roster of 10 playable heroes (what the game calls "guardians") ranging from obvious choices like Gandalf and Sauron to somewhat lesser-known characters like Galadriel and the Witch-King. And while 10 is the number of heroes the game will start with, Monolith has promised continued postrelease updates with new characters as well as an under-the-hood balancing system that will allow them to stealthily tweak each hero without the need for a cumbersome title update.

Aside from the Lord of the Rings license, the major difference between Guardians of Middle-earth and the titans of the MOBA genre is platform. League of Legends and Dota 2 are both PC-only games, while Guardians of Middle-earth is being built as a console-only take on the genre. So what you've got is your hero's primary abilities mapped to the controller's four face buttons, as well as an analog stick control system replacing the point-and-click method of a computer mouse.

The overall pace of the game is designed to be a little bit faster than others in the genre, in terms of both the general action and the overall match length (there's a 15-minute timer enabled by default). You can customize the overall feel of the match depending on which matchmaking options you pursue, however, including how many human or AI players you want in combinations of up to five versus five. You can also choose from battle arenas featuring either one lane to the opposing team's base, where there's sure to be a massive bottleneck of action, or three lanes, where you can get more creative and spacious with your approach.

Guardians of Middle-earth is scheduled for release later this year on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. There's no official price just yet, but Monolith did mention they're aiming for "standard pricing," so you can expect something in the neighborhood of $15.

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E3 2012: Although the open-world elements are brand new, there's a more traditional Lego experience just below the surface.

When you think of an open-world adventure, certain ideas invariably rush into your mind. Untold freedom, crazy locomotion, and utter unpredictably are the foundation upon which most free-roaming games are built, but Lego City Undercover has a more structured side to complement its nonlinear elements. We had a chance to play through a tightly constructed level involving miners, criminals, cops, and other suit-changing minifigs.

The most noteworthy aspect of Undercover is that the stages you enter outside of the open-world city are strikingly familiar for anyone who has played a previous Lego game. In the mission we took part in, we played as a police officer in search of a gang of criminals. Far below the sidewalks where oblivious citizens walk without a care in the world lay a base where evil plans are hatched and coldhearted robbers laugh about their day's work. Sounds like a job for the best darn cop in Blockland.

An expansive cave is the perfect place to create a quiet lair for a band of scheming thieves. Miners, completely unaware that their hard work is making it possible for criminals to hide from justice, were busy striking away at rocks and minerals with their handy pickaxes. As in previous Lego games, the tools you have access to depend on what kind of character you control. By tapping either of the shoulder buttons, you switch between different suits, letting you easily doff your policeman uniform to become a citizen in a pinch.

Of course, you won't have much luck getting through a mine if you don't find a miner's suit. A change of clothes was found in an out-of-the-way locker, and once we found our miner outfit, we could light dynamite and run like crazy from the blast. Puzzles are laid out in a linear and logical way, so you can seamlessly walk down a single path to make your way through a level. You may have to destroy an outhouse and then reassemble the pieces to make a bridge, or chop rocks apart to find precious Lego blocks hidden beneath them. It's a simple game, but enjoyable, because the breezy pacing and friendly charm make it immensely endearing.

During one section, we entered a free fall through a huge hole cut into the center of the massive cave. By changing our trajectory, we could collect studs, though danger awaited those who didn't heed caution. A spinning fan blade made short work of our flimsy policeman. In our second attempt, we made it past the fan with ease, and the protagonist muttered, "Now why would they put that there?" It's a simple enough comment, but it adds a dose of humor to the silly adventuring. And though it's certainly strange to hear words come out of these plastic people's mouths, the cute dialogue more than makes up for the weirdness.

The demo ended with a nod toward the Mario universe. We assembled a bunch of blocks into a warp pipe, jumped down, and then reached the surface as fireworks extolled our hard work. Getting a peek beyond the open-world experience made us further understand what the majority of this adventure would feel like. What we saw so far was good (though expected), and we're eager to see how Lego City Undercover turns out.

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E3 2012: We take a closer look at the different fighting mechanics in this DC Comics brawler from NeatherRealm Studios.

Injustice: Gods Among Us is making a huge presence at this year's E3. Imposing banners featuring heavily armored versions of classic DC characters line the halls. Their cold, impassive stares silently observe the hordes of enthusiasts who line the show halls. Today we got an extended hands-on demonstration of this 2D fighting game and talked shop with members of the development team. For fans of the recent Mortal Kombat, Injustice will look familiar, but there are a lot of changes to how special moves function for us to cover. Let's start with meters!

You can't see it in these screens, but in the bottom left and right corners there are special meters for each fighter. These meters have two elements. The first is a four-section meter used for standard fighting game techniques. The least expensive are enhanced special moves, a technique also found in Mortal Kombat. Unlike in Mortal Kombat, however, enhanced special moves are activated after the move connects. For example, Batman has an anti-air grappling hook ability that pulls opponents out of the air and slams them to the ground. The enhanced version ends by bouncing the opponent off the ground, letting you follow up with a combo. It is activated after the grappling hook connects but before the opponent is slammed down.

In brief, you can now hit-confirm into enhanced special moves.

The four-section meter can also be gambled away during a character clash. A clash is this game's version of combo breakers from Mortal Kombat and is activated during a combo by the defending player. Think of it as a panic button. When a clash begins, the characters split up, and there is a brief cinematic scene with banter between the two. During this scene, players commit one to four sections of meter (provided they have enough) in secret. The fighters then run up to each other and throw simultaneous attacks, and the one who wagered more energy deals damage. If the defender wins, he or she may be able to recover some damage and deal it back to the attacker.

At present, you can initiate a breaker sequence with only one section of meter, which makes it very easy to abuse. NetherRealm is aware of this and does not want each fight to be an endless string of clash sequences, so the requirements are still being tweaked. It also remains to be seen whether the winner of a clash can combo after it.

For all four sections of meter, characters can unleash their strongest special attacks. These stylish sequences currently deal roughly 20 percent of a character's total health. If you've watched any of the trailers, you have seen snippets of these attacks. Superman knocks opponents into orbit, while Batman dishes out a brutal melee combo. And just like in Mortal Kombat, certain characters' super attacks have unique properties. Batman's, for example, is a parry--similar to Johnny Cage's X-ray attack.

In addition to the four-section meter, there is a second, sub-meter unique to each character. Called traits, this sub-meter behaves a little differently for each character and provides a unique mechanic. Superman can make himself more powerful for a limited time, after which the trait meter begins to automatically recharge. Wonder Woman's trait lets her switch between two fighting forms on the fly: sword and shield, or lasso. Harley Quinn's trait produces a random item she uses as an attack. Each character's traits are controlled with a single button and add an extra layer of depth to each fighter.

A point of comparison would be A.B.A.'s blood packs from the Guilty Gear series, or Hakan's oil from Super Street Fighter IV.

The character select screen held 24 slots and 15 stages, but is not final.

One of the more controversial features in Injustice is the environment attacks. The development team wants this feature to be desirable to all types of players. Most of what we saw were basic, one-off attacks, but there are plans for environment attacks that can be used to extend combos, or ones that can be used only under certain conditions (such as when you're knocked down). They also recognize some players will not want to use these attacks, so stages that don't have any environment attacks--or the option to disable this mechanic--are a possibility.

Fights in Injustice are single-round duels, similar to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. You might think this would produce very quick matches, but every character has two health bars to extend the fight. At the end of the duel, there are some very stylish ending scenes, including Superman flying into orbit and staring down at Earth, or Batman perched on a gargoyle looking over Gotham. It's a nice touch, and this attention to detail extends throughout the game and helps celebrate its comic book roots.

The final mechanic we learned--or rather realized--were cross-ups. A common technique in 2D fighting games, cross-up refers to striking an opponent with a jumping attack in such a way that it's difficult for the defending player to know which way to block. In Mortal Kombat, cross-ups didn't exist thanks to the dedicated block button; but in Injustice, players hold back to block, so that technique becomes viable again. Currently, a player who has been knocked down cannot roll before getting up (as in Street Fighter X Tekken), but this is also subject to change.

Some characters can buff themselves or debuff others.

For the moment-to-moment fighting, Injustice felt--not unexpectedly--very similar to Mortal Kombat. Character jumps and bounces were still very floaty, and the command inputs for special attacks were of similar style. We'll try to grab some more time with Injustice before the show closes, so if you have any questions, drop them in the comments below. Injustice: Gods Among Us will be released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U next year.

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E3 2012: We take a quick look at three new changes to the mechanics of Dead or Alive 5.

The recurring slogan for Dead or Alive 5 has been "fighting entertainment." This philosophy has led to several outrageous locales, including a fight under the big top and in the middle of a war zone. At this year's E3 we got the chance to see Bass, the professional wrestler from past DOA games, and Sarah, the latest addition to the Virtua Fighter/DOA crossover, in action. Sadly, it was for only a very brief moment, as the rest of our presentation focused on three new announcements for the game's mechanics.

POWER BLOWS These heavy attacks that knock opponents into walls--thus starting an environment-based attack--have been altered from the last time we played DOA5. Previously, we could perform these attacks at any time. Now, we could perform them only when our fighter was at 50 percent health or below. The developers cited community feedback as the reason for this change since the community was worried power blows would be too easy to abuse. Each character will have a different input to launch a power blow, and you do not have any sort of armor while charging it up.

TAG MATCHES Like previous Dead or Alive games, Dead or Alive 5 will include tag matches in addition to standard one-on-one fights. Tag throw attacks and tag combos are still possible as well, but there is a new, third type of attack: the tag power blow. To perform this devastating combo, both of your fighters must be below 50 percent health. One fighter connects with a power blow, but instead of knocking the opponent into the environment, they knock them toward their partner. The partner performs a quick combo and then knocks the opponent into the environment, leading to an environmental attack.

CRITICAL BURST This special attack is a mechanic designed for advanced players. If you look closely, when a character is struck, a portion of their health gauge flashes silver and then fades away, representing damage. The flash lasts only a split-second, and it's during that brief window that the attacking player can perform a critical burst. If timed correctly, the critical burst will put the opponent into a crumple state, making it very easy to land a power blow--or start another combo. Currently, there are no restrictions on critical bursts, but the developers are exploring ways to prevent players from abusing them.

While there is a lot of emphasis on environment attacks, the developers also realize that not all players will want to use them. Therefore, a simple stage that lacks any outlandish environment attacks will be available as well. That's all we have to share at the moment, but if you have any additional questions, feel free to leave them in the comments blow. Dead or Alive 5 will be available on September 25 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

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