No, it's not some kind of commentary on BioWare and the controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3's ending -- this is an experiment, an altered ending for Frozen Synapse that will live for a limited time. "This wasn't intended as a criticism of Bioware," Frozen Synapse developer Mode 7's Managing Director, Paul Taylor, told Joystiq. "I thought it would be interesting to take a load of fan suggestions and then just make the worst ending I could imagine; a kind of horribly self-referential meme-laden nightmare, and then just slap that on the game for a week and see if anyone cared."

One player already grabbed video of the altered ending, which you can see embedded above. "The thing that's interested me most about doing that is that people (mostly) seem to get the joke and also seem to want to use it as a starting point for a conversation about stories in games." We'll just have to take his word for it -- we'll never be smart enough to play Frozen Synapse.

When Brian Fargo revealed his Kickstarter project to fund Wasteland 2, he laid out some goals. One of those tiers was $1.5 million, which at the time seemed kind of ridiculous. It has since been pledged by backers, meaning Wasteland 2 will also be available on Mac OS X and Linux at launch.

Wasteland 2 has well exceeded its original goal of raising $900,000 on Kickstarter, and there are still 24 days to go. We don't expect it'll beat Double Fine's current record-level of pledges, but we're certainly ready to be surprised again.

Shoot Many Robots developer Demiurge will host a "Control Scheme Throwdown" at the upcoming PAX East. The throwdown is in response to feedback the studio received, which CEO Al Reed detailed in a blog post, arguing the merits of a twin-stick control scheme for the game over the single-stick method found in the game. In a couple of weeks, the studio will have a special build of the game rigged with both control schemes at the show, with head-to-head competitions of Shoot Many Robots featuring both styles of play.

Reed wrote, "To show that we're willing to put our money where our mouth is -- if we end up patching Shoot Many Robots (which is not a certainty in the console world), we will include controller configuration in the patch and we'll set the default to whatever wins at PAX!"

"Our user-testing failed to capture that some of the people who preferred the twin stick controls loathed the single-stick ones. It's also worth noting that you can't judge twin stick to be better until you've tried it yourself," Reed told Joystiq in a follow-up conversation. "It's one thing to say 'I don't like the controls,' it's another to go so far as to say 'the developer was foolish, this scheme I thought of would be better.'"

Well, in a couple weeks, real-world consumer testing will deliver an answer (or simply add more gasoline to the debate). Either way, we hope the game gets patched so both sides can live in harmony and shoot many robots.

Either the dude took one too many spills and has a major concussion, or he really needs to be more aware of where he's driving. Trials Evolution transports the masochistic main character to the world of Playdead's Limbo.

RedLynx created the track using Trials Evolution's built-in track editor, XBLA Fans reports. Now, instead of only dodging pitfalls and explosions, dirtbike dude can also look forward to dodging giant cogs and saw blades when Arcade NEXT kicks off on April 18 with the launch of Trials Evolution.

Also of note: the first batch of screens show no spider, but it's there. Trust us.

A happy side effect of the Joystiq Indie Pitch is getting some of these developers enough of a sales boost to get them off ramen for a couple days. Purchasing a game from indies is just like supporting a Kickstarter ... but, you know, with the instant gratification of receiving a game right away.

What's everyone playing?

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Sony may be on the verge of closing down its shooter studio, Zipper Interactive. According to Kotaku sources, there's been "chatter for several days" about an impending closure and the possible cancellation of a current project. Sony has not commented on the situation.

Those with short memories may recall Zipper Interactive for it PS Vita shooter, Unit 13. But the company's roots go much deeper -- Zipper Interactive was founded in 1995 and spent the remainder of the '90s making Windows games. In 2002, Zipper created a little PS2 game for Sony called SOCOM: US Navy Seals and, after spending the next few years pumping out sequels, it was acquired by the publisher in 2006. The developer completed work on the large-scale multiplayer shooter, MAG, in 2010.

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When you first enter the outskirts of the Boston area, you may feel a certain sensation. Relax, that's not another Highlander in the vicinity, it's your body knowing that something special is about to happen. You're about to attend an awesome gaming convention and possibly come hang with your pals at Joystiq!

Today, we're glad to report the show will be even better: Capybara Games will have a playable build of Super T.I.M.E. Force at its booth, the developer has revealed. Super T.I.M.E. Force is an IGF 2012 entry and won the XBLA prize this year, meaning we'll see it arrive on Xbox Live Arcade eventually.

Capy will be situated at booth #764, so stop by if you want to play. You may have to push us out of the way, though -- fair warning and all of that.

Square Enix is teasing some kind of mystery game -- in that the identity of the game is a mystery, not that it's about solving mysteries. We don't know; it could be that too.

What we do know is that the teaser site has the URL "cc2012.square-enix.co.jp," which may be a clue. The video features fantasy-style characters, crystals, and art by Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia artist Masaki Hirooka and longtime Square artist Yusuke Naora. It's also given a "summer 2012" date.

Our guess is that it's some kind of new mobile/iOS RPG like the Chaos Rings series (on which Naora works). We'll find out more when Square Enix is ready to stop teasing us.

Getting a technically complex game like LA Noire running on a tablet is an impressive feat, and one that OnLive has every right to crow about. That Rockstar took the time to implement touch controls so that LA Noire could be played natively is equally laudable. That said, the touch support isn't nearly as well-implemented as it might have been and is, in fact, downright clunky.

In short, it's LA Noire on a tablet with virtual controls, which plays out exactly how you think it does.

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Darksiders 2 is set to launch on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on June 26. The Wii U is slated to launch sometime around the "year-end season." When Nintendo unleashes its newest system on the world, Darksiders 2 will be there.

Word comes from Hayden Dalton, lead designer at Vigil Games, who revealed the info in an interview with Digital Spy. "That's been very interesting to see what those guys are doing, and they're making efforts to make sure we do use it in more than a slapdash way," Dalton said in regards to how Darksiders 2 will use the Wii U's unique controller. "It's basically the core game, but then with added abilities to do certain things that you can't do on the other consoles."

"We're not basically heavily changing the core game to support the control system, but the control system will be an enhancement of the core game," Dalton said. One example he provided was possibly being able to switch equipment on the fly -- as the player is running, they can tap on the controller and instantly change equipment, rather than having to pause and navigate through a menu. "That's huge, it's not breaking up the game in a way, I'm not going into a menu and assigning it, I'm literally just tapping as I'm playing."

Warren Spector recently told GamesIndustry.biz that over 700 people worldwide were working on his next game, which of course turned out to be Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. To us, that seemed unfathomably vast -- it's larger than Capcom's estimate for Resident Evil 6 by 100 heads. So, in order to get a handle on it, we asked Spector how that roster breaks down.

"'Breakdown' is a good word for it, actually," he joked. "The internal team size at Junction Point is about the same as it was on the first game. To have any chance [with an AAA game] -- I'm not saying we did succeed or will succeed, that's for you guys to decide -- you need 150-200 people these days. You just can't do it with less."

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The Twilight Zone-inspired series within Alan Wake -- dubbed "Night Springs" -- was popular among fans. Each short episode not only helped to expand Alan Wake's universe, but it also led to the downloadable spin-off Alan Wake's American Nightmare, in which the character of Alan Wake was caught in the middle of a Night Springs episode arc.

Six original episodes were featured in Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake, and Joystiq has the exclusive season pass. Today, perhaps the best of the original series run: "Quantum Suicide." After the break is the final episode from Alan Wake, "Absence of Creativity."

But the season extends beyond its original run of six, and Joystiq has more Night Springs coming with new, never-before-seen episodes landing exclusively next week.

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Though it's already long past the time you would have gotten any decent store credit for trading in a GameCube or games, the deal's about to get a lot worse. Starting April 2, GameStop will stop taking trade-ins of GameCube hardware, software, or accessories.

It's going to be a bit sad to see the giant stack of Donkey Konga bongo controllers in our local store dwindle without any way for the supply to renew itself. That said, if you want a cheap Donkey Konga controller, now's the time to go secure one.

In retrospect, it's obvious that Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two would be a musical. It's the natural path toward making the Disneyest thing possible, and that's where Junction Point creative director Warren Spector's interests lie. Before I played a demo, I and other press were presented with a cutscene setting up the story.

The Mad Doctor makes a dramatic return to Os Town, amidst rumbling earthquakes (thanks for physically making my seat rumble in the theater, Disney), claiming to be reformed and seeking a hero to help him save the people from some unknown calamity.

And all this claiming and seeking is done in song. "Help ME, help YOU!" he sing-talks in heavily accented English. It works to convince Oswald to join him, and it worked to convince me that Warren Spector is all about the principles of Disney. I guess I didn't need much convincing there anyway.

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Waiting for characters to be announced is so 2011, you guys. Nowadays, hackers figure out a game's roster by themselves, using nothing but a demo and sheer willpower. According to neoGAF user Sectus, alternate costume data mined from the Dead or Alive 5 demo has revealed the fighter's entire character list.

Every character from Dead or Alive 4 supposedly returns, along with series newcomers Mila and Rig, and Virtua Fighter veterans Sarah Bryant and Pai Chan. Each character also has around 6 costumes, assuming this all checks out, of course. Jump past the break for the complete list of uncovered characters.

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You might be surprised to hear it, but Double Fine head Tim Schafer isn't feeling too much pressure after receiving over $3 million from fans for his upcoming adventure game. "I don't know if I could describe it ... it's kind of relaxing," he told a crowd of attendees at a New York University-hosted forum last evening, much to the crowd's delight. Answering seriously, Schafer said, "It hasn't really felt that way," referring to the stress. "It just felt like, the whole thing, all the backing just felt like a big wave of goodwill and support. It was very emotionally ... it was a big happy moment for the company."

Beyond his jokes about stress and receiving enormous piles of cash, Schafer said that he was "actually terrified of making a game for just $200,000." (The final Kickstarter aimed to raise $400,000.) He questioned whether he was still capable of producing a project for such scant resources, having spent the last decade making successively larger projects – at least until Brutal Legend launched. Thankfully, fans raised well over the original target, meaning Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Double Fine "can actually put a real team on it now and have a whole year to make it." So there you have it, folks: expect that adventure game at some point in early 2013.

As for Kickstarter itself, Schafer spoke highly of the new avenue it provides game creators who want to self-publish. He stopped himself short of calling it anything beyond that, however. "I think it's a great new way to make things happen that couldn't happen before," he said. More specifically, he thinks of it – symbolically – like the Sundance Film Festival. "That changed the [movie] business a lot, but it didn't destroy all of it," he said. "It made Hollywood better. It made more diversity in the kind of movies getting made, what kind of actors were in them – it made the whole art form richer I think. I think a similar thing could happen in gaming."

You may not get HD graphics if you stick with the Wii for Epic Mickey 2, but you will have the opportunity to experience a more tactile verisimilitude. During a preview event for the sequel, Junction Point showed off prototypes for two new Nunchuk controllers based on in-game items.

The first is an updated version of PDP's "Paintbrush Chuk" accessory, designed to mimic Mickey's paintbrush. The new version has the Epic Mickey 2 logo and a glowing blue paint blob at the end of the brush. The second, and inexplicably more desirable of the two, is a Nunchuk based on Oswald's remote device, silver and boxy. It's like a literal "Wii Remote" (except, of course, it's a Nunchuk attached to an existing Wii Remote).

Being that these were both prototypes, and the game hadn't even technically been officially announced yet, there weren't any details to be had about pricing or availability. We'll keep you updated, because these silly controllers are fun.