Finally, EA understands what it is we want out of our limited edition game bundles. Some extremely loseable keychains? Nope. A cat head-sized helmet which are awesome for roughly 23 minutes, then an eyesore shortly thereafter? Nope. In-game weapons and equipment which are useful as all-get-out, which also have the benefit of not taking up space in our real-life humble abodes? Ahh, now that’s the ticket.

That’s exactly what the limited edition of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 — which is now available to pre-order through Steam — is bringing to the table. The bundle includes six pieces of equipment, ranging from improved armor on the player’s vehicles, to a magnetic dart gun which helps the player track targets. We’ve contacted DICE to find out if these bonuses will be available during the game’s multiplayer portion. We’d hate to have a repeat of the original Bad Company’s boycott shenanigans.

Question: What’s the only thing scarier than a looming horde of normal-speed zombies? Answer: A looming horde of normal-speed zombies with robot brains. That’s the kind of nightmare we’ll soon be facing once Valve puts the finishing touches on an update for Left 4 Dead 2, which will add Infected bots to the game’s Versus mode to help balance out one-on-one games.

In addition, Valve’s doing some tweaking to the zombie auto-spawning which occurs during the finale events in Versus mode. Apparently, the developer decided that the average 34.56% chance of survival for the human team was a little too low, and is trying to balance things out by disabling auto-spawning during the campaigns’ climaxes. Of course, none of that will matter when the human team is attempting to escape from robot zombies.

The Borderlands crew at Gearbox Software is making the post-mortem interview rounds, and this time Aaron Thibault, Stephen Palmer and Matthew Armstrong stopped to chat with G4. The interview has some excellent insight into the making of the game: The team originally was finishing up the Halo PC port when they realized that Bungie had dynamically coded their guns, and wondered what you could do if you dynamically created guns from that code. “Halo meets Diablo” was the answer, and that was Gearbox’s premise from the beginning.

They also talk about the famous art style change, and say that the current animated look actually helped players get into the game — they could “make a certain leap of faith into an understanding that the crazier and wackier and more fun things can exist in this world.” And they say that for future installments, they are taking player feedback into account: Both a mini-map and more levels are two things that they didn’t quite expect such a call for, so it’s a safe bet that we’ll see those features in any future installments of the “important” franchise. Please?

Here’s the good news: The first images of McFarlane Toys’ line of action figures based on the upcoming Prince of Persia movie have been released, and they don’t look half bad. Sure, some of the villains’ figurines are sort of dead-eyed, but hey — that’s just a natural side-effect of the angry sand infusion they’ve undergone. Check out Toy News International’s gallery to see the rest of the man-dolls.

Here’s the bad news: These figures are only four-to-six inches tall. Even if you’re a person of limited stature, it would be impossible to play “Jake Gyllenhaal Fantasy Dream Date” with a four-inch-tall representation of the guy.

Huh?” you say, confused by the very prospect of the Mass Effect trilogy getting the film treatment. Dont’ worry buddy, we’re right there with you. The BioWare space RPG may be getting just that, though, according to Mass Effect 2 project director Casey Hundson in a recent interview with MTV. “Obviously we have a tremendous amount of interest from people in Hollywood to make a major motion picture about Mass Effect,” Hudson said.

Thankfully, Hudson followed up his statement with a conditional position for the possibility of a Mass Effect film. “The most important thing for us is, we don’t just want to see a movie get made … we want to see a great movie get made, if it’s going to get done at all.” We have but one humble request should a movie ever be made of the series: it goes the fully 3D — if only for text trees in the third dimension.

Speaking with a handful of indie WiiWare game devs, GamesIndustry.biz (warning: login required) uncovered the not-so-startling truth behind Nintendo’s support for third party devs on its digital distribution platform: there is none. “We feel that Nintendo is not doing enough to promote the service at all,” said JV Games VP Jag Jaeger of the publisher’s support.

Jaeger added that it’s not just a question of underpromotion, it’s also a measure of not having access to the same tools that The Big N does. “Help create a more even playing field by allowing developers to use Nintendo resources … even a more fair use of the Nintendo Channel would help — Pokémon will be advertised for months while third party titles get a week usually.” He also argued the subject of localization/marketing support in foreign markets and Nintendo’s general “fend for yourself” attitude towards WiiWare development. “Nintendo, in my opinion, could do more to keep the WiiWare and DSiWare stores in customer’s minds,” agreed Nnooo’s CEO and creative director Nic Watt. We’ve asked Nintendo for a response to the various allegations and will update this post if we hear more.

You probably got that idea already, considering nothing but the sound of crickets and tumbleweeds have emerged from Criterion HQ since the release of the last bit of Burnout Paradise DLC, Big Surf Island. A tweet from the company account confirms our fears, stating there will be “no more” DLC and that the company “did WAY more than everyone else.” That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t slake our need for more amazing DLC!

So there you have it. The world is a colder and darker place today. If you need us, we’ll be Freeburning our troubles away online, pining for what could have been.

Surely, you deserve some award for sitting through a season, nay, an episode, of Heroes. Torne, a new DVR service for Japanese PS3s, may do just that. A new report in Famitsu (via 1UP) suggests that Torne will offer viewers Trophies. “It’s compatible with the PS3 trophy system, and you can get trophies for things like watching final episodes from a lot of TV series, for example,” SCE’s Kiyoto Shibuya told the magazine. Being able to unlock Trophies should make the Sony’s DVR offering a “uniquely PlayStation product.”

We’ve already brainstormed a few possible Trophy selections. How about a Gold “Otaku” Trophy for watching all 366 (and counting) episodes of Naruto? Here’s an idea that could save network TV: a Bronze Trophy every time you refuse to hit fast-forward through the commercials?

Heavy Rain has you taking control of a number of playable characters. However, the game will only put you in the shoes of the heroes tracking down the elusive “Origami Killer.” In an interview with French site gameblog.fr, game director David Cage revealed that players will be able to play as the villain in an upcoming DLC episode of the Heavy Rain Chronicles.

Other episodes of the Heavy Rain Chronicles will serve as prequels to the main game. For example, the already-revealed taxidermist scene will explain why Madison Paige is an insomniac. Additional episodes will focus on the other characters in the game, with another revealing how Norman Jayden became addicted to drugs.

The taxidermist episode will be about an hour long, and it’s likely all future episodes will be as well. Cage didn’t go into details on when the episodes will be delivered or how they will be priced. Depending on the success of these episodes, Quantic Dream may want to pursue even more prequel stories, considering a sequel simply doesn’t seem likely.

Information has bubbled up from the Japanese 2chan message board about the new Wii Zelda game and, while 2chan’s record on rumors hasn’t been bad (they’ve broken information on Japanese anime, Resident Evil and other games that later turned out to be true), these rumors are crazy. Like Majora’s Mask crazy. See what we mean after the break.

• The game will be very different from the traditional overworld/dungeon/overworld Zelda style.
• Link will be left- or righthanded depending on whatever option you select as a player.
• Mechanics and gameplay are done in terms of development, and dungeons, story, and characters are still being fleshed out. Part of the story will involve an innkeeper in Link’s hometown and her young son.
• The girl in the teaser picture above may be named Adelle, Adella, or Aderu, though that picture was a placeholder, not her real face. She won’t be with you throughout the game, but she will communicate with Link through his sword.
• The sword itself is not the Master Sword, but it will develop and release unlockable abilities as the game goes on.
• There will be horseback combat, and your horse (possibly Epona, though that may just be a nickname for the horse in the translation) will be much better at avoiding obstacles.
• And finally, the Link in this game may be the Hero of Time from Ocarina of Time, the game itself may contain time travel, and the overworld may include more than just Hyrule, and/or may not be Hyrule at all. That means that the Wii Zelda may in fact be a direct or indirect sequel of Majora’s Mask, a fact sure to raise the ire of some (and the hopes of others).

Remember that none of this information is confirmed (and to be honest, most of it is pretty vague). Feel free to commence arguing whether or not these rumors fit with what we already know.