Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, the next entry in CyberConnect2's lauded fighting game series, has been pegged for a March 5 launch in North America; March 8 for ninjas across the pond in Europe. Both regions will include a special in-game Goku outfit for protagonist Naruto and an exclusive trading card, available only in first-run copies of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3.

A new English-subtitled trailer has also been released alongside this most important Goku costume DLC news, which you can feel free to watch above. For the most authentic experience possible, we suggest you turn out the lights and play the video on mute, like we imagine how most ninjas digest their video game trailers on the internet these days.

Following the latest Super Joystiq Podcast, we're done discussing our top 10 of 2012. Now we move into a 2013 with Tomb Raider and Dead Space 3, some shiny new consoles (shhh!), new indies we haven't even heard of yet and - gasp! - a new Call of Duty, probably.

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This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go.

The only thing a wizard loves more than wizardry is meddling in others' affairs. So of course a great wizard decides to use his magic to bring a storybook full of creatures and imaginative places to life. And of course things go awry and it's up to you to clean old robesy's mess up.

In Fluidity: Spin Cycle, you play as Eddy, an amorphous pool of water. Eddy is a water spirit on the hunt for rainbow spirits trapped within each page of the wizard's book, and he locates each one by overcoming various physics-based puzzles and challenges.

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While the year-end avalanche of video game deals (looking at you, Steam) may have conditioned you to believe you need to pay money in order to play games, this is not entirely true – there is a wealth of free-to-play games out there. One such game is Offensive Combat, a team-based FPS from ex-Activision folks, available on Facebook today.

Formed in late 2011, developer U4iA Games gave us our first look at its first game Offensive Combat back in May. After a "limited test" over the holidays on Facebook, Offensive Combat enlisted over 500,000 players. Clans and tournament play are currently unsupported, though U4iA hopes to implement both soon.

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To decide its top ten games of the year, Joystiq goes through a fairly strict voting procedure, which is much more civil than the battle royale you might imagine our process to be. And now, you can get a better idea of how all that procedure works – while you're looking at some cool infographics.

Here's how it works: each editorial staff member picks his or her top five games of the year, with no stipulation other than: the games listed must be 2012 releases in North America and not include any re-releases or upgraded versions of previously released software (sorry, Persona 4 Golden!).

But the staff doesn't only select five favorites; they can list as many games as they want for the awards, with the caveat that anything listed after number five is considered their "Best of the Rest" selection.

Each of the top five votes carries a weight. Number 1 is worth five points, number 5 is worth one – this is the game's base score. Listing a game as a "Best of the Rest" also carries some weight: .5 points toward the final tally per appearance on the "BotR" list. Ties are broken by the number of times a game appears on the base list – represented here as "Top Five Voted" – and, if further tie-breaking is required, by how many times it appears on the "BotR" list.

Super Hexagon is a good example of how this system works as intended. The game made multiple appearances within the staff's top five lists, and appeared on the "BotR" list many times. Eventually, the game's score carried it into the fifth spot. Surprising, yes, but we collectively loved it enough to put it there.

In the case of something like FTL: Faster Than Light and Borderlands 2, those games most frequently appeared in "Best of the Rest" sections of staff lists. Despite only cracking the top five of a few lists, both games were just shy of enough points to make the list due to these numerous Best of the Rests; if it was the top twelve of 2012, FTL and Borderlands 2 would be in there. It was that close.

For the top spot, Journey edged out XCOM: Enemy Unknown by a mere three points. Three!

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In the battle of soccer versus guns, guns win. At least, that's the case in the UK, where Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 managed to claim the title of best-selling game of 2012, according to Chart-Track. FIFA 13, the latest edition of the reliable sales powerhouse, managed to clock in at number 2. The top five was rounded out by Assassin's Creed 3, Halo 4 and Hitman: Absolution, respectively. As MCV points out, all five of 2012's best sellers were released in either November or December, meaning they accrued their impressive sales in less than two months on the market.

Other notable titles included Far Cry 3 at number 7, Borderlands 2 at 10, Mass Effect 3 at 11, Need for Speed: Most Wanted at 13, Max Payne 3 at 19 and Sleeping Dogs at 20.

Prove you're the best at manipulating Rock Band Blitz's power-up combinations, by competing in a new series of weekly tournaments. Harmonix has added the option to enable tournaments on the Rock Band World Facebook page, after which you'll be able to play the three tournaments hosted every week.

Each tournament focuses on a single song, and allows you to replay the song as often as you want within that week to get a high score. If you have the highest score or the second-highest, or you're one of three random winners selected for each song, you get "free DLC and other great prizes!"

The tournaments continue through March 13. This week's eclectic challenges: "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me," "Charlene (I'm Right Behind You)" and "Shout."

Waiting for the perfect time to try out the awesome, time-bending shooter, Sine Mora? Looks like this is it, as Green Man Gaming is currently offering the Steam version of the game for a paltry two bucks, a full $0.50 off the already ridiculous price of $2.50. All you have to do is enter the promo code GMG20-PJFEW-Y16HK.

If that's not enough to pique your interest, did we mention that it also features super dramatic animal people speaking in Hungarian?

Valve has announced the Steam Holiday Sale is being extended through this weekend, obliterating any false sense of security felt by your credit cards. The Encore Weekend, as Valve is dubbing it, is giving users another chance to get the sale's biggest discounts on a select number of games. It kicks off at 1PM ET (10AM Pacific, 6PM Brit-time) on Saturday, January 5, and comes to a this-time-for-good close at 1PM ET on Monday, January 7.

In what was meant to be the final day of sales, today's discounted games include Rage (75 percent to $4.99), Sleeping Dogs (66 percent to $16.99), Forge (50 percent to $9.99), and Amnesia: The Dark Descent ($4.99). If franchise discounts are more your kind of thing, you can now get Crysis, Crysis 2, and Crysis Warhead for a total of $17.99, or the two Trine games plus the Goblin Menace DLC for Trine 2 for $8.74. And, as ever, there's still plenty of time to get on board with yesterday's deals.

This week, the podcast is a little different. For one thing, it's live! And it's on video! Join the whole Joystiq team as we talk about our favorite games of 2012 via Google+ Hangouts on Air. Don't worry: if you're reading this after the stream is over, it'll be available as a regular old YouTube video later – and in the audio form to which you've grown so accustomed over the years.

We'll be keeping an eye on the comments for this post, so if you want to interact with us and be part of the discussion, that's where you should be talking – not the comments on the YouTube video.

Update: We're off the air! Encore presentations will be available as soon as the video encodes.

We've known for a while that Nintendo Network IDs can only be associated with a single Wii U console, and now it appears that this restriction is providing unexpected benefits for used console buyers. Specifically, NeoGAF member DSN2K claims that second-hand console purchasers are able to redownload any games that were purchased via the previous owner. From a newly created account, DSN2K was able to download Nano Assault Neo and Trine 2 at no cost.

It makes sense, given that all user accounts on a single Wii U console are able to access previously purchased content. What makes less sense is that previous purchases seem to remain connected to the hardware even after the associated accounts are deleted. Regardless, you might be in for a pleasant surprise if you pick up a used Wii U.

We've reached out to Nintendo for comment.

Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups.

Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3's story is racially insensitive, a Bechdel Test nightmare, and is criminally close to being homophobic. Despite all the cringe-worthy narrative elements that are handled with the deftness of a surgeon with a hacksaw, Far Cry 3 immersed me in its world and didn't let go until I finished. It speaks to the brilliance of the game's design team that players are compelled to push on after realizing they are one of the Rich Kids of Instagram and are tasked with saving others of their ilk.

Oh my gawd, and don't even get me started on the mental self-flagellation I experienced after saving Oliver.

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The PlayStation Network version of Demon's Souls is bringing death and despair to Europe on January 23, Namco Bandai tells us. That means our friends across the ocean must wait a little longer for From Software's downloadable dose of role-playing desolation, following yesterday's news of it coming to North America's PSN this coming Tuesday.

Namco says the game's European servers are staying online, so be sure to look out for messages telling you it's safe ahead when in fact there's a big, fat soul-loving spider who missed both breakfast and lunch and isn't really dealing with it well.

Though you weren't privy to the violent struggle to determine Joystiq's top ten games of 2012, you can see the aftermath, as we gather and refuse to forgive each other live. Or we just talk about games we loved.

Starting at 2PM EST (11AM PST), Team Joystiq will host a live Google Hangout to talk about the best games of 2012. It's a special Super Joystiq Podcast that you can see! We encourage you to go back and read our official writeups now, to get the measured, thoughtful arguments behind the opinions we'll be screaming at each other later.

As the underground cult of indie development surges to the surface and crowdfunding allows vague ideas to transform into products, the scope of gaming bubbles and changes. Games now span spectrums of physical input and emotional amplitude, and our perspectives change with them.

Amid this upheaval is an age-old genre that for some reason resists attempts of acceptance in the "hardcore" gaming audience: point-and-click adventures. They're just choose-your-own-adventure stories; they're interactive novels; the choices in them don't matter – all arguments against adventures as true games, while shoot-die-respawn titles play on, unchallenged.

Joystiq's own Top 10 of 2012 list includes The Walking Dead, a high-profile and famously intense point-and-click, and my own Best of the Rest has Yesterday, a gritty adventure from Pendulo Studios. Obviously, we consider both of these games to be games. Other players, maybe not so much – so let the argument begin.

In order to debate whether adventure games are, in fact, games, we first need a shared definition of the term. Without definition, you could argue that The Walking Dead isn't a game and I could just as passionately espouse why it is, and we could both be correct within the worlds of our own, secret definitions. While mutually assured correctness sounds like a wonderful conclusion, in reality it does nothing to examine the question at hand and leads to huffy frustration, leaving the debate unresolved forever.

What we're really arguing is the definition of a "game," rather than any particular sub-genre, which are all just variations of that main theme. This is my definition.

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American McGee, the man behind Alice, Grimm, and most recently Alice: Madness Returns, is the latest prominent developer to try out Kickstarter. McGee and his Shanghai-based Spicy Horse studio are seeking $200,000 in funding for Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, a free-to-play action RPG detailing the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but with a Japanese slant.

The more modest sum compared to some of the big names of last year reflects on Akaneiro having already been in development for around one and a half years. According to the Kickstarter page, Spicy Horse needs the money to provide Android and iOS ports in addition to the already planned PC and Mac versions, cross-platform support, co-op multiplayer, community support, and an equipment crafting system. The page also lists potential stretch goals including two new expansions, a Linux version, a player versus player arena, and guild creation.

Spicy Horse collaborated with EA to release Alice: Madness Returns in 2010, but McGee since said that will be the studio's last physical release in light of much better returns from F2P games like Akaneiro. In the video on the Kickstarter page, McGee says his studio's goal is now to "deliver console-quality content to mid-core gamers, and to do this without having to rely on traditional publishers" and that "Akaneiro is the result of those efforts."

Faster than you can repeat a surname, the James Bond games have disappeared from Steam and Activision's own download store. In addition, the download versions of the games 007 Legends, Blood Stone and Quantum of Solace don't show up on Amazon, though of course the disc versions are still available there.

The likely explanation would seem to be expiring rights to the 007 license, but the timing doesn't make sense on that, considering that 007 Legends was just released in October (and November on PC). We're investigating the matter, though not in the sexy, brutal James Bond method: we've just asked Activision about it.

BioShock: Ultimate Rapture Edition, which has been on sonar since last June, finally surfaced this morning and was officially revealed as a bundle of BioShock, BioShock 2 and all add-on content. Publisher 2K Games announced this morning the set will be available in North America on January 14 for $29.99.

Beyond the two games and their respective downloadable content, the pack also includes the "Museum of Orphaned Concepts, which is a tour of "early concept art, character models and more set within the halls of Rapture." There's also the "Challenge Rooms Pack," previously a PS3 exclusive available for the first time on Xbox 360.

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