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

Been a lot of activity in the world of gamedom the last week. But before we get into it. Here's a Gears of War Lancer made complete of Lego, that freaking works? Incidentally I totally invented Ninja Lego, they stole my ideas.

Big News

Steve Jobs died last week on October 5 at the age of 56. His health had worsened dramatically this year leading to his recent resignation as CEO of Apple. Now the Apple Mac, probably the most well known of Jobs numerous legacies, might not exactly be remembered as a device for games, but there’s no doubt the man and his work had a huge influence on the way we enjoy our particular past time.

Firstly, along with lead executives Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, Steve made a company called Pixar Animation. A division of Lucasfilms that big George was cutting loose, Jobs showed up on sale day with five million dollars, having recently been kicked out of his last job, and became CEO. Originally Jobs had wanted to turn the company into another computer company, impressed by the technology on display, but the enthusiasm of Lasseter convinced Steve to focus the company on animation and he invested another five million into the business as CEO. When Toy Story arrived in 1995 it had a huge impact on animation, computer games and digital entertainment in general. Pixar went on to be the most successful film company in history, making a string of blockbusters and winning awards by the truck load. You only need to look at games still being made today, like recent release The Gunstringer, to see the influence of Pixar’s aesthetic. And how many times did you hear Sony and Microsoft name drop Pixar films when promoting their next gen consoles, the PS3 and Xbox 360, back in the day. I still remember Peter Moore often describing the 360 as easily capable of running games that looked like Toy Story.

Then of course, we have the iPhone and the iPad. To be fair, and as Apple haters are quick to point out, smart phones and tablets did not begin with, the iPhone and the iPad, neither did MP3 players begin with the iPod. But under the guidance of Jobs and the team he put together they sure as hell defined them. The iPhone just about revolutionised mobile gaming overnight, turning little start ups like Rovio and Halfbrick into big name game developers. And no doubt sending the old boys at the table, Nintendo and Sony, crazy with jealousy at the mainstream success they’d so long sought for their handhelds (see Delusional News below).

I can’t say for certain I would have got along with Mr Jobs if I had met him. I’ve read the scary stories about elevator rides leading to firings and his low sufferance for fools. But I did appreciate what he represented, success and wealth not through manipulation or unscrupulous practises, but through passion, innovation and focusing on people.

Steve is survived by his wife Laurene and their three children.

Mass News

After weeks of speculation and rumours it's been officially confirmed that Mass Effect 3 will feature and element of gameplay. This of course led to a lot of anxiety among Mass Effect fans (Massies?) that the sanctity of the single player experience will somehow be damaged by a horde of rampaging, leet speaking CoD players.

Bioware have dropped some more information to soothe fan fears. The multiplayer mode is an coop addition to the single player and while progress in the coop can effect the campaign, it's completely optional. Mass Effect 3 features a 'Galaxy Readiness' metre tracking how prepared civilisation is for the Reaper war, as you complete missions this metre rises and coop missions contribute to this. Plus you can play as all the familiar races from the Mass Effect universe as part of coop which will definitely spice up the game all together. Personally this news has me even more keen on the March 2012 release.

Trailer News

Here’s a game trailer to beat all game trailers. The Orcs Must Die Trailer is interactive, giving you a perfect idea of how its tower defence gameplay style works step by step.

Minecraft News

Minecraft came out portable for smart phones with Android 2.1 or higher just the other day (curse you desirable iPhone!) following it's brief moment of exclusivity on the Sony Xperia Play. Probably a good idea, I didn't even know the Xperia was on sale yet... or what it is.

Regardless, Kristen Schaal, who if you watch the Daily Show of Flight of the Conchords you know is HI-larious, is schilling Minecraft on the Xperia in the below TV ad. Honestly, she just needs to speak and I laugh.

Same Bat Time, Same Bat News

In addition to Nightwing getting confirmed as another character, maybe even playable, in the new Batman Arkham City game, the Avatar marketplace has gone nuts with Batman stuff.

So basically my Avatar will be a bearded batman from now until the end of time. Why?  Because Batman, that’s why.

More Than Meets the Eye News

War for Cybertron was a pretty great game, definitely the best Transformers game ever made. Transformers Dark of the Moon the game, eh, not so much. Surprising that they were being made by the same company, High Moon Studios then. In my Dark of the Moon review I lamented the loss of quality, theorising that perhaps they were, or should be working on a Cybertron sequel instead.

Well hot damn it turns out they were. And best all it sounds pretty damn good. It follows on from the War for Cybertron story, including Optimus leading the Decepticons away from Cybertron and then disaster and crash landing on earth. And the best news of all, the most exciting thing about this sequel: Grimlock.

The hot tempered Dinobot leader will be a playable character in the sequel. No word on whether all the Dinobots will be making an appearance. All we know for sure is that in 2012, me Grimlock.

Delusional News

When Sony announced their PSP Vita my first reaction was, that’s really cool, I’d like to have one, if I had a tree in my garden with golden flowers on it that ripened into real gold and then fell to earth with a dull clang. Not that it’s prohibitively expensive; it’s just a particular type of luxury item for which I’d need plenty of disposable income to justify.

As has been pointed out endlessly whenever people note the poor world wide sales of the 3DS most people have a device they can carry around that can play some pretty awesome games, and some of these games are a dollar instead of sixty dollars. I’m just not sure I’ll get sixty times the fun out of Resident Evil Mercenaries as I will out of Jetpack Joyride.

But the executives at Sony and Nintendo say that’s stupid, and you’re stupid, and their mum spoke to your mum and you have three nipples so you’re a freak! They have graphs and things that say people like buttons and want expensive lengthy hand held games for a device with a battery life below three hours.

Unfortunately for those mean executives (it’s not a nipple anyway, just a really big round mole) some recent research of 3000 users of tablet computers which you can read here reveals that people increasingly use their tablets in place of other forms of entertainment. Dedicated hand held game use tends to drop off on average to the tune of 60% followed closely by reading traditional books and newspapers by approximately 40% and watching TV by as much as 25%.

People like tablets and I’d bet money if you stopped a hundred people in the street and asked them, if they did not own any of the three which they would buy today if they had a choice out of a tablet computer, 3DS or PSP Vita, the vast majority would go for the tablet.

Jiggly News

Remember the unveil of DOA 5 at the Tokyo Game Show a month back and the talk about dynamic destructible environments. But you were trying to remember the name of that Australian actor in the DOA movie (Holly Valance was it?). Well here’s a trailer of what those environment focused battles with look like.

Movie News

Did you hear? Spielberg and Dreamworks are making a Halo movie! Oh you heard, you heard about it last year… and the year before.

Well this time the information comes from a new source, so there. Seems the French edition of the new Greg Bear novel Halo: Cryptum had a press kit that mentioned the Halo franchise was being turned into a movie in 2012 under the helm of Spielberg (not specifically mentioned he’d be directing, likely he’d Produce) and his studio Dreamworks.

My first thought, why the hell didn’t I get a press copy of Halo Cryptum when it came out here? Hey 343 studios, what gives? How many glowing reviews do I have to give to Halo games before you give me some of those books to review? Here’s another one:

Halo Waypoint Review

You get stuff for having achievments.

My second thought: This is either a foreign language leak of announcement Microsoft were saving for the release of Halo Anniversary and all the 10^th Anniversary hoopla this year, or it’s an erroneous claim based on old information. Naturally I’m hoping for the former, but I’m anticipating the latter.

Dreamworks and Halo do seem like a good fit though. I’m sure they’re dying for a new franchise to milk for a few years; did you even go see the last Shrek movie? I know I didn’t. That’s a franchise that shouldn’t have happened.

That's it, see ya next week.