The Art of Video Games exhibit just concluded its run at The Smithsonian and the final number of visitors is in: 686,406. The exhibit ran for six months, from March 16 - September 30, so that's well over 100,000 people per month critiquing the art from such games as BioShock, Diablo 2, Donkey Kong, Fallout 3, Goldeneye 007, Doom 2, Minecraft, Jet Set Radio Future, Shadow of Colossus, Star Fox: Assault, Zaxxon and tons more, all chosen by fans via some smooth Smithsonian voting.

For reference, 686,406 people is slightly more than the entire country of Montenegro, more than six Grenadas, or 617,765 dollar-store items in Grenada (10 percent sales tax).

While you may think that science and malleable metal alloys comprise the majority of what makes a Spartan so special, the reality is that even John-117 himself is little more than a crunchy cool ranch husk filled with carbonated green stuff. Spartans are made of Doritos and Mountain Dew, is what we're saying – that's why the PR partnership between Halo 4 and PepsiCo seems like such a no-brainer.

Potential players can get a head start on accruing extra experience by registering an account over at dewxp.com or doritosxp.com. Select codes from Mountain Dew and Doritos packages – starting on October 15 – can be used to increase your XP in Halo. There are also goodies up for grabs, including consoles and controllers, Warthog toys and free Xbox Live subscriptions, among many other prizes.

22 Cans, Peter Molyneux's development studio, is "only going to make one game and that's it," Molyneux tells VG24/7.

Of course, this game will come after the 22 "experiments" Molyneux's team is working on now, the first of which is Curiosity: What's inside the Cube, a million-player game that ends with one person discovering the life-changing secret inside a big cube.

"But everything that we do, every thought that we have, every moment of a day, is all working towards this full game," Molyneux says. "22 Cans is only going to make one game and that's it. You just release that single experience then you refine it and adapt it like – and don't think of this in any way other than an analogy – when a TV company makes a soap opera."

Considering Curiosity was announced in June and has since undergone a delay, name change and beta (and is expected to launch on iOS any day now), we can look forward to 22 Cans' actual, singular game in about seven years.

Riot Games has added a feature called "Honor" to its popular online PvP game, League of Legends, partially in the hopes of solving the issue of community management. Honor is something that players will be able to distribute amongst each other after every matchmaking game. After finishing matches, players will be able to award either their teammates or opponents with Honor for being friendly, helpful, or for showing great teamwork in the game they just played.

Honor is "not a currency," says Riot (and it can't be traded or spammed), but it will be used to recognize worthy players over time, and the company says it is looking into possible "bonuses for the most Honorable summoners." For a long time, League of Legends players have been able to "report" each other for negative actions like being offensive or leaving a game early, but Honor seems designed to go the other way and reward positive actions instead. It remains to be seen how it will play out in the future. Riot is experimenting here, to see how players use the system before it's fully implemented.

Valve's Dota 2 also has some innovative social features planned, including a reward system like this for working together with other players in the game. These MOBA games are very complicated to play, and so companies like Riot and Valve are doing their best to get players to work together and create a solid community, rather than lose new players to widespread offensive behavior.

While it hasn't confirmed any concrete plans to do so, Sony would at least entertain the idea of bundling the PlayStation Vita together with the PlayStation 3. Sony would "have nothing against [a bundle] whatsoever," Fergal Gara, managing director of PlayStation UK recently told CVG. Fergal added that it could conceivably happen as early as this Christmas, if Sony wanted.

Such a bundle would be a natural candidate for games that feature crossplay functionality, he said, and could also include PlayStation Plus, which now functions across both devices. With Sony trying very hard to push the interconnectivity between Vita and PS3, a bundle would certainly make sense, and it sounds like Sony (at least in the UK) isn't opposed to the idea.

Should the concept come to fruition, the only question is whether or not consumers feel the same way.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD is scheduled to hit Vita in mid-November at the latest, Just Add Water tells Eurogamer. Stranger's Wrath HD was initially set to launch in June, but by August was delayed to "very soon."

The HD version of Abe's Oddysee – now titled New 'n' Tasty – is planned for launch in Q4 2013, headed for Xbox Live and PSN, with a PC version later on.

The latest classic video game series to be resurrected as a barely recognizable, completely different game on phones is Zaxxon. No longer a scrolling shooter with a frustrating isometric perspective, Zaxxon Escape is now a behind-the-back third-person game for iOS and Android.

With only a few screenshots and the teasiest of teaser trailers, it's difficult to determine just how this new game plays, except to say it's probably nothing like Zaxxon. The game is due "soon" on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Get your SegaScope 3-D glasses ready!

The Sherlock Holmes franchise has seen a modern reclamation of pop culture fame, in the blockbuster movies starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law; the British television series gaining Dr. Who levels of popularity overseas, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman; and the latest re-imagining by CBS, with a female Watson played by Lucy Liu, and Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes.

Any Sherlock Holmes rendering now has, we can assume, at least one point of reference for any audience member – and if asked to equate one person with the series, most would likely say, "That guy who plays Iron Man" before "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle." Frogwares' The Testament of Sherlock Holmes now has to live up to this robust world of preconceptions, tell an old story in a unique way, and throw in engaging gameplay, beautiful graphics, smooth dialogue and spot-on voice acting.

If that sounds like too much to ask for, it is.

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It looks like 343 Industries is bringing back the popular Halo 3 map, Valhalla. Halo 4's version of the massive map is called Ragnarok and, aside from its usual cliffs and cannons, will now feature the new Mantis mech. In the above video, you can see the Mantis stomping on Ghosts and unleashing general carnage with the requisite dubstep backing.

Xbox.com has posted the first look at Jordan Mechner's reimagined Karateka, and a lot has changed since the Apple 2. The hand-drawn rotoscoping has given way to a fully 3D presentation featuring designs by Jeff Matsuda, character designer for The Batman (and the iOS game Age of Monsters).

According to the Xbox listing, D3 Publisher has taken on publishing duties, and is planning to release it on November 14. We're checking with D3 to verify that information. In the meantime, enjoy the screenshots on Xbox.com

Star Wars: First Assault, which still hasn't been officially announced by Lucasarts, has popped up again, this time with a promotional image for Xbox Live Arcade. NeoGAF took note of the image for the game on the Xbox Marketplace.

Realizing that waving its hand and telling IGN to look elsewhere wasn't working, Lucasarts told the site, "It is an exciting time at our company right now, however we don't have any announcements at this time."

The game first popped up on sensors back in August when it attempt trademark and domain registrations.

Ubisoft's Kinect-powered Hulk smash simulator Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth now has a free demo up on Xbox Live for Gold subscribers. The demo transports players to The Savage Land where they'll square off against Captain America Skrull and Magneto.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth launches on Xbox 360 on November 9 and will launch on the Wii U some time during the console's launch window, which runs up until March.

A human's reaction following exposure to a virus is interesting. Now, if we were to say Resident Evil 6 is a virus, we'd have an apt analogy going on right now. Review scores are all over the place for Capcom's latest installment in the former survival-horror franchise. For our part, we called the series' latest mutation a "fully-featured, sloppy, frequently frustrating attempt to do well by everyone."

• Game Informer (88/100): "That metamorphosis into insane action is front and center in Resident Evil 6, and bringing a buddy along for the chaos is great fun. The game's minor flaws don't hold back the decadent experience from being an unhinged, flaming rollercoaster ride."
• Eurogamer (60/100): "This game is blind to imagination and focus. Capcom's uncertainty about the series' identity post-Mikami (and post-Uncharted) is hardcoded into its structure: four campaigns offering different, flawed expressions of that potential. And the inevitable price for this wavering is a lack of coherence."
• Edge (60/100): "In always trying to offer something more, Resident Evil 6 fails to refine what it has already given you. And whatever else you might say about the game, it achieves something that its predecessor never did: it steps out of Resident Evil 4's shadow and becomes its own game. Sadly, it's a game that redefines the series as a loose collection of action scenarios with a shared theme of mild sci-fi horror."
• Gamespot (45/100): "The Bad: Loads of bad, overlong quick-time events –Excruciating overemphasis on mediocre set piece events –Ruins the pace by constantly ripping control from you – Poorly executed scripted events lead to unavoidable deaths."
• Destructoid (30/100): "It's not enough to say that Resident Evil 6 is poor as a Resident Evil game. That alone implies there could be a quality experience if fans can get past their preconceptions and feelings of betrayal. No, Resident Evil 6 is poor by the standards of any game, not just the high ones set by its own legacy."

If you're in Europe, you'll have to find some other way to set the appropriate mood on Halloween besides playing a spooky PlayStation Vita game. While Silent Hill: Book of Memories will be out in North America on the seasonally appropriate date of October 16, the Vita action game will be released in Europe on November 2, just in time for ... the rest of November.

Strangely, the demo arrived in Europe before it does in North America this week, even though the actual game arrives later.

Hey, have you heard about this PSN thing? Between PSN Play, Day 1 Digital, various PS Plus bonuses, and this new offer, Sony really, really wants you to try PSN.

Today, Sony announced a deal that gets you $20 back in credit if you spend $100 on PSN in October. It's the perfect time to put such an offer out, as it interacts nicely with the Day 1 Digital deal. Buy two games from that program (some of which are already 10% off for PS Plus) and there's your $100. You can then put that $20 toward, say, Spelunker HD. Or anything else on PSN.

The credit will be emailed to you in November, and sent to you as an XMB message if you're using a PS3.

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PlayStation Plus subscribers ready for some football can tackle NFL Blitz for free starting tomorrow. Following Tuesday's regularly scheduled PlayStation Network update, the arcade-style American gridiron simulator will be gratis, along with discounts on Alex Kidd and Spelunker HD.

Spelunker HD is deeply discounted at half off, diving the game's price to $5. Sega Master System classic Alex Kidd in Miracle World will be 80 percent off, making the regularly priced $5 game a mere buck. Be sure to practice your life or death, competitive rock-paper-scissors strategies before visiting Miracle World.

Forza Horizon launches on the Xbox 360 October 23, but a few weeks before then you'll be able to get behind the wheel early with a demo on October 9. Available free to Xbox Live Gold subscribers for the first week and everyone else after, the Forza Horizon demo will feature a few missions, several of which will be Rivals mode-compatible – you'll be able to compare demo deeds with your Xbox Live friends.

A section of Forza Horizon's sandbox map will be unlocked in the demo and all those who download then purchase the game on October 23 will get a custom 2013 SRT Viper GTS "designed to highlight Forza Horizon's 'gone-gold' status."

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It's the not-so-common ideal these days to graduate from college and immediately jump into a fulfilling role that uses one's myriad of learned skills. Of course, there's nothing terribly common about the Chicago-based indie developer Young Horses or the much-ballyhooed sequel they're working on, Octodad: Dadliest Catch.

Octodad is a colorful series about an octopus posing as a suburban father and husband; successfully funded via Kickstarter in the summer of 2011. As for developer Young Horses themselves? Five of them live under one roof, previously in a single apartment and now with two across a mutual hallway, while three others commute into the workspace from elsewhere throughout the city and surrounding suburbs.

Between the team's bevy of independent day jobs and contract work, they're putting their spare hours into Octodad's return. But the group also identifies the odd situation of having colleagues as roommates within a communal work studio they lovingly call the "corral," mere steps from where they sleep. It's a unique arrangement, which has come with its share of difficulties, but it's one that members say is the only way they can imagine tackling the project.

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