The Tuesday Cap is a new regular column capping of and commenting on game news for the past week.

It’s been a full two weeks since my last weekly update and I apologise for that. My body had decided to host some kind of international conference for viruses over the last week and I spent my time in a gibbering, feverish, spluttering mess. But I’m recovered now so here’s the game news of the last fourteen days.

The Big News

The annual TGS in Japan was the biggest thing happening in the world of gamedom over the last week. But like similar shows this year, and again maybe I’m just getting jaded in my own age, but there wasn’t anything really new going on to get jazzed about.

Probably one of the most exciting titles at the show was the Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright mash up game for the 3DS and that’s no even confirmed to get an English translation. Although it’s pretty likely.

Project Draco may be the best Kinect title coming out in 2012. The on rails dragon riding shooter was available as a playable demo at TGS and early impressions were very good. Diabolical Pitch, another Kinect game where you fight monsters by hitting baseballs at them, may sound stupid but actually looks like it has the potential to be a lot of fun. I’m just excited about some Kinect titles that aren’t sports games or amusing tech demos.

Fighting games got a reasonable waggle at TGS 2011 with Tekken X Street Fighter showcasing a bunch of new characters including Heihachi and the bear Kuma. Dead or Alive 5 was also unveiled, or at least a logo was, along with the cryptic description of the game as entertainment combat. Apparently the environments in DOA will become even more interactive and will morph during battles. Given the DOA franchise doesn’t have much else to set it apart other than jiggling boobies, it’s definitely a good idea for the franchise to look for other ways to stand out.

Ninja Gaiden 3 will feature a mode for your mum with auto dodge and auto block enabled. Of course this seems extraordinarily unlike the Ninja Gaiden series famed for being excruciatingly difficult at the best of times, it sounds like the title is scrabbling for a bit more mass market appeal.

In other ninja news Namco Bandai title Shinobido 2: Tales of the Ninja was enough to sell me on a PS Vita. The title is very similar to its creators previous series Tenchu, which was easily one of my favourite Playstation games, increasingly screwed up by each sequel. A return to form of sneaky ninja assassinations would be great. Shinobido 2 will be a launch title for the PS Vita.

Other Vita games include ports of the upcoming Tekken X Street Fighter, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, HD remakes of Metal Gear Solid, Zone of the Enders and Final Fantasy X.

The PS Vita certainly needs some good launch titles to move units given some pretty negative press reactions to the revealed fine print of Sony’s handheld unit. Apparently the battery life is 3 to 5 hours for games and 5 hours for video, that’s with average screen brightness, headphones instead of speakers and no network use at all 3G or WiFi, which can cut the time considerably. Ouch. A charging dock takes the edge of the battery issues but sold separately adds about US$35 to the price and, incredibly, the device doesn’t have any internal memory and will require the purchase of a separate memory card. Suddenly the comparison to the 3DS release price doesn’t look quite so hot.

Nintendo brought the love with extended looks at all their upcoming titles including and amazing trailer for Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, which will apparently take between 50 to a 100 hours to beat, about double the time of Zelda’s last console outing Twilight Princess. New Kirby, Mario and Mario Kart games were also on the dock but the Nintendo press conference was definitely focused on pushing the flagging 3DS with no new information about the much more interesting Wii U.

Things That Never Will Be News

Echoing the open world Batman game information that leaked following Pandemic closing shop, the shuttering of THQ Australia windows has resulted in a few details of a pretty nifty looking Avengers game tie in that may have been related to the upcoming ensemble movie.

The rendered footage has been yanked of YouTube for copyright violations by THQ but 1Up still has a copy of the video and it looks amazing. A multiplayer FPS super hero game where you play as Ironman, Captain American, Thor and the Hulk? To quote the Reddit post hosting the original video, How the hell did this get cancelled? View the video here.

Buy it Before it’s Banned News

You know what you don’t get in a lot of zombie games, or in a lot of video games in general? Vaginas. The counterpart organ, the penis has actually made a few appearances here and there, most recently in GTA IV Lost and the Damned DLC, but rarely do we see the most private of lady parts. I think it’s safe to say never in a major retail game either.

That is until a video recently surfaced showing an upskirt view of Dead Island character Xian who appears to be going commando, au natural, junk free, or to put it bluntly, the character isn’t wearing any underpants. This means that there is a small chance the OFLC will recall the game and likely fine the developers for malicious, unrevealed content as they did in the almost identical circumstances of the Hot Coffee mod. While Hot Coffee's controversy related to explicit sexual content, comparably worse to a bit of nudity, to be on the safe side, if you were thinking of getting Dead Island you might want to do so soon.

Memory Taxing News

Bad news for people with PS3 hard drives clogged full of arcade games and Singstar songs, the much hyped shooter Rage will require an 8GB install. Given the fact it took me longer to prune my hard drive down to download and install my free copy of inFamous than the actual download, I don’t think I’ll be playing Rage on my PS3.

Not that 360 owners have it much easier, their version has three discs and an install of each disc is highly recommended by iD. While being forced to stand up at least once a day to change discs is obviously an outrage to some, I think it’s pretty cool developers are still making games that push the hardware as far as they possibly can.

Remember Jade Empire News?

While Bioware are busy preparing to blow everyone’s mind with Mass Effect 3, and possibly slap everyone’s mind around pretty damn hard with some Dragon Age II DLC, they’ve taken a moment to remind us they made Jade Empire awhile ago.

Not only that they made it, but they love it, and they know we loved it (because we so did, Chinese fantasy RPG squeeee) and at some stage they’re totally going to make another one. Bioware co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have gone on record that they’re, "just looking for the right way to deploy it." Whether that means a whole new Jade Empire game is on the slate or they’re just looking to get it back out there via channels like Live and PSN remains to be seen. But more Jade Empire would be very welcome in my house.

Gears News

Gears of War 3 came out last week and holy corduroy pants it is amazing. Ice T is tweeting about it, Conan O’Brien is making skits about it (that were funnier when they were about GTA) and reviewers are throwing huge scores at it like crazy. The new Horde mode is fun plus and Beast mode is wickedly delightful. Berzerker crush puny, blurry stranded mwa ha ha ha haaa!

Not so much a news mention than it is a confirmation that you should place this game, its fantastic fun. Expect the TAGS review shortly.

Bethesda Sues Fallout News

Gotta say, despite my often distasteful over affection for Bethesda, they’re certainly a little too litigaty for my liking. Their lawsuit against Interplay, who are currently trying to release a Fallout MMORPG, has taking a harsh blast of hot searing justice recently with the judge saying their filed Temporary Restraining Order against the Fallout game claiming infringement on what they claim as their brand.

This is the second time Bethesda has lost the legal battle for Fallout exclusivity against Interplay, failing to cease and desist work on the MMO back in 2009 with legal action. Good news for fans of the Fallout world at least, you’ll soon have an MMO game to tinker in.

You’ll Never Go Back News

The Wii balance board is great as, maybe… um, a last minute mother’s day present I guess? But you know what’s really holding the Wii balance board back? It’s not the complete lack of decent supporting hardware, it’s the colour. So the Balance Board is getting a make over and this October it will be available in black, the original white, and, that’s it. So if you’ve been holding out on getting a Balance Board you’ve got the opportunity to get a cool edgy one this holiday season.

Mobile Gaming Controversy News

The iPhone app store played a very brief host last week to a game called Phone Story. The satirical anti corporation game by a company named Molleindustria is a series of mini games with players first working in harsh Congolese mines for rare earth materials which are then sent to a company looking pretty much like Chinese technology manufacturer Foxconn, famous for its numerous staff suicides. Players then buy the smart phone from what looks like an Apple store followed by a mini game highlighting the issue of e-waste produced by technology companies cycle of reinventing and reselling items. It’s a harsh look at where many of our modern gadgets come from.

Shortly after the game appeared on the app store it was banned by Apple with some pretty flakily excuses for pulling it. The game has since been available on Android phones, giving some the impression the game was specifically targeted at Apple when in reality it makes a case against all smart phone manufacturers.

But there’s no denying Apple stepped on their own toes bringing the jack boot down this time. If they’d brushed it off and ignored the game the simplistic and really quite boring game would likely have quietly slipped away, but in going into autocratic damage control mode they created a Streisand effect as game blogs clamoured to get details on the game so controversial it had to be banned. They’d be wiser to just plain ignore unflattering apps like this in the future.

Frustrating News

Maybe you don’t remember but before they made Infinity Blade and became iOS darlings, Chair Interactive made a game called Shadow Complex. While owing a lot to its spiritual big sister Super Metroid, standing on its own Shadow Complex was… incredible. The game was achingly enjoyable from start to finish, hell I freaking loved it (read my review of it here).

Cliffy B (he off Epic, who own Chair) has confirmed that Chair have designed and practically made Shadow Complex 2. It’s just been put on the back burner as the company continues work on other iOS titles. So the game is all set to go, it’s just not got a team working on it right now, it’s a project Epic and Chair are keeping in the pocket for some time in the future. Very sad. So the official stance is, yes there’s a Shadow Complex 2 and no, you can’t have it.

Weird Game News

Go here and download a game called Ruins. It's interesting, short and weird, just chase the rabbit.