Forbes.comrecently released theForbesFictional 15 which is their annual listing of fiction’s richest characters and ending the list in the bottom two spots were video game characters, Lady Lara Croft and Mario Mario. Lara Croft took the number 14 spot with a net worth of $1 Billion gained through inheritance and antiques. I was unimpressed to see thatForbestried to make a couple of jokes about Lara by fusing her with actress Angelina Jolie....

Interested in Kinect but worried thatself-playing racing gamesandon-railsHarry Pottertitlesaren’t your cup of tea? No matter, for Microsoft has promised that a healthy batch of so-called “core” games are coming out for the machine. So, on-rails shooters, basically? “There are many [hardcore games] coming,” promised senior producer Kevin Unangst at a recent showcase event. “This is sort of scratching the surface of what’s happening, but we’ve gotChild of Edenhere today, we’ve got Twisted Pixel’sGunstringer… and certainly you’re going to see more....

Microsoft’s latest “Deal of the Week” is for Ubisoft’s graying — at least, by videogame release terms —Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. This week only, you’ll be able to download “GRAW 2 Co-op Collection 2” for 320 Microsoft Points. That’s 80 Points off the original price. It’s a 20 percent savings, folks! The map pack has a total of nine maps, seven of which come from two previous titles in the series,Ghost Recon: Island ThunderandGhost Recon: Desert Siege....

No, that’s not a piece of pixel art, nor is it aMystpuzzle key. It’s a lovely spatial sound synthesizer flash program that lets you plug in notes like a monochromatic Lite-Brite toy that creates music depending on which axis information you feed it. It’s simple enough to make it easily accessible by anyone, and detailed enough with its noises to make it crazily addictive. Thanks to@JayHitcheron Twitter for sharing his musical creations with me last night....

IGN (yes,thatIGN) haswordthat the next feature film based on theMortal Kombatseries will not be a sequel to the previous two. Instead it will be a reboot of the entire series. Here’s a quote; “The movie is not going to be a prequel, sequel, or in any form be related to the previous 2 movie. Pretty much likeBatman Begins, is going to restart the series with new concepts, stories, etc.,” a scooper informed Moviehole....

Of course the biggest game of the year is going to have a shed-load of midnight launch events! 4,408 GameStop stores across the nation will be holding festivities forCall of Duty: Black Opsstarting at 9:30PM the night before launch. Fans can enter the “going camo” face painting trivia contests and pre-ordering the game 48-hours in advance of the release will get you 250 PowerUp Reward bonus points. Best Buys, Toys R Us, WalMarts and more will also be selling the game at midnight on November 9 and it looks like WalMart will have the best exclusive....

Dante’s InfernoandFairytale Fightsshare a few things in common. One of those things is an Achievement that nets players points for killing children — an action most developers tend to avoid in their games. InDante’scase specifically, Visceral Games plans to dish precious points for killing unbaptized infants with the “Bad Nanny” Achievement. This is, naturally, drawing ire. TheInternational Nanny Associationhas made it plain that they aren’t happy with the award, saying (viaGame Politics) that it was “created out of poor taste and bad judgment” and play “maypromote violence towards children....

You could hardly be blamed for not looking at all of these screenshots forTime Crisis: Razing Storm, but you may want to browse through them anyway. In addition to a clump of character models, there are a considerable quantity of images from the game’s multiplayer mode, including a level set in a prison. I playedTime Crisisa bit in the arcades whenever I had more money than sense, but I never bothered to take the title home with me....

New content forArmy of Twowill be coming out next week for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. The Security and Strategy Corporation (SSC) Challenge DLC will contain a new challenge mode and new maps for the challenge mode. The SSC Challenge mode will be set for two teams of two where they will complete obstacle courses as fast as possible. Winners will be determined by who gets the most cash or who’s left standing at the end of the rounds....

Hooray forNinjatown. I can never get enough of looking at this adorable series of games. Venan Entertainment let us know that the iPhone titleNinjatown: Trees of Doom!has just received the first update to its content. In addition to fixing a number of bugs, this update makes some changes to the design of tree segments to allow for higher scoring. Plus, there’s new stuff in the form of a playable character, Anti-Ninja, and a smoke bomb item which will teleport a ninja a thousand feet up instantly....

After losing Rare, Silicon Knights and a handful of other talented second-party development contracts, Nintendo’s finally on the offensive in the Corporate Circle of Life, gobbling up other companies for its own profit. Today, Bandai Namco Holdings announced that Nintendo is purchasing an 80% stake in Monolith Soft, makers of theXenosagatrilogy andBaten Kaitosseries, as well as the upcomingDisaster: Day of Crisison the Wii. As part of the deal, Bandai Namco will retain a 16% share of the studio for its own dastardly schemes, but this news bodes well for Nintendo....

Anyone with any brains and gaming decency knows exactly what they should be doing this week — buying WayForward’sShantaesequel. It’s out this week, and it’s only twelve bucks. Don’t screw around… buy it! My second choice would be Learning with thePooYoos: Episode 3, because I was such a huge fan of the first two episodes. Yeah, it’s designed for children ages 3 to 6 (and for those who can’t read), but it’s got baby animals teaching you about numbers, letters, shapes, and colors....

One of my only major complaints aboutBioShockwas that for a first time FPS player, I would have preferred the sensitivity of playing with a mouse over the right stick on a 360 controller. Since I don’t have the SuperComputer Of The Future and playing it on PC was not an option, I often found myself wishing for a better way to look around me. Seems like I may not have been the only one reimagining a better FPS control scheme....