The demos for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Mass Effect 3 will each unlock in-game items for the other game.

Playing the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo, available January 17, will unlock two items in Mass Effect 3 when the galactic space opera launches March 6. Shepard will be able to don the close-quarters combat focused Reckoner Knight Armor (pictured below) and wield the Chakram Launcher, which features explosive ammunition discs.

The Mass Effect 3 demo, which should be available sometime this month, will also unlock a piece of armor and a weapon for Reckoning on February 7. The ME items include Shepard's N7 Armor, with all the trimmings (helm, cuirass, gauntlets, chausses and greaves), and omniblade daggers for stabbing.

No word yet if Reckoning will feature the ability to sleazily declare multiple shops in Amalur as your favorite for deep discounts.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was easily the best-selling game in the UK for 2011. Data released today by UKIE (compiled by Chart-Track) has Activision's behemoth franchise grossing a record-breaking £83 million in sales during its first week, which also turned out to be the biggest week of video game sales ever in the UK at £121m. The year 2011 was also the third year in a row Activision had the top-selling game -- and all from the same franchise, fancy that -- with Call of Duty: Black Ops in 2010 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009.

EA took both the silver and bronze with FIFA 12 and Battlefield 3, respectively. Both titles had stellar opening weeks in the UK and have consistently performed well in the all formats top ten since launch.

The number four game for the year was Zumba Fitness, which should come as little surprise to anyone who followed our "summer of disbelief." The launch of the fitness title for the Wii kept the game atop the all formats chart for longer than we would have thought, but on the Wii chart it remained in first for a record-breaking 28 consecutive weeks.

Find the all formats and console-specific chart toppers for 2011 after the break.

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Kaz Hirai, Sony's... um, let's just call him "Mega EXEC" for now, said the company will not announce the PlayStation 4 at this year's E3. The Wall Street Journal reports Hirai is sticking to the 10-year life cycle for the PlayStation 3 and currently sees no need to replace it.

"Andy (House) is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3," Hirai said at a CES roundtable with press, referring to statements made by Andrew House that there's no PS4 plan for E3.

Meanwhile, over at the other console manufacturers: Whispers of an Xbox tease at CES never occurred, with current chatter of the next console's details being "rumor and speculation." Nintendo will certainly go big at E3 this year with the Wii U, after revealing the hardware at the prior show, and getting ready for the console's launch later this year.

This time it's personal.

It may be one of the worst taglines ever, but for Hitman: Absolution, it's an apt summary of a demo given to me in San Francisco last week. This time around, Agent 47 isn't accepting contract kills -- he's on his own mission.

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Following a demo of Hitman: Absolution in San Francisco last week, I talked to producer Hakan Abrak about this latest entry in the killer franchise. Abrak was tight-lipped on launch timing and the recent trademark that surfaced, but he did confirm to Joystiq that there would be pre-order incentives and special editions for Absolution.

"Right now we're not ready to talk about the special editions, but definitely," he said. Pre-order items were briefly mentioned as well, though without further elaboration. (Different things spread across numerous retailers is a reasonable expectation, we suspect.)

Two major UK video-game retailers, HMV and Game, saw a drop in sales over Christmas, prompting HMV to reconsider its investment in games as a whole, The Telegraph reports. HMV's gaming market share fell 16 percent over the holidays, while sales in music and DVDs saw no change; games now account for 20 percent of HMV's sales. Chief Executive Simon Fox said HMV may focus only on AAA titles in the future.

Game's Christmas retail sales were down 15 percent, while year-on-year it lost 13 percent in sales, GamesIndustry.biz says. Online sales rose 4 percent, and sales for the year ending January 2012 dropped 12 percent, less than the UK gaming market's total loss of 13 percent. Game recently closed 39 stores and is expected to have 550 in the UK by 2013, GamesIndustry notes. CEO Ian Shepherd is banking on the Wii U and PS Vita to revitalize sales in 2012.

Keen with desire to own a golden Nunchuk to match the golden Wii Remote released for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword? Well, you can't get an official golden Nunchuk outside of Japan's Club Nintendo, but that can't stop you from making your own.

Enter Reddit user alycenwonderland, who crafted a very slick custom Nunchuk that, dare we say it, looks even better than the official peripheral. Of course, should you decide to make one yourself, it will likely take hours of monotonous work before you can reap the sweet payoff -- not unlike the latest Zelda.

When you're done sampling Asura's Wrath and Final Fantasy XIII-2, you have a selection of new, or new-to-PSN, games waiting for you. Choplifter HD is InXile's reimagining of the vintage helicopter rescue game.

And PSOne Classics' Final Fantasy Origins is not so much of a reimagining as a simple refresh of the first two NES Final Fantasy games, released as a single PlayStation disc in 2003, and then on no discs today. These PSOne remakes were made before the PSP remakes of the same games -- and now both are available for download on PSN. Check the PlayStation Blog for all of this week's new content.

Ubisoft estimates sales reached €650 million ($831M), up 8% from the same period last year, during its third fiscal quarter spanning the holiday months. At the same time, Ubi revised its estimate for the full fiscal year, ending in March, to between €1.05 and €1.08 billion ($1.34-$1.38B), elevating its lower estimate from €1.04 billion.

"In continuation of the robust trends recorded for the first half of the fiscal year, Ubisoft reported record-high sales for the Christmas period, exceeding expectations. Against an extremely competitive backdrop," said CEO Yves Guillemot. "Assassin's Creed Revelations posted a solid performance, in line with our forecasts, and Just Dance generated outstanding sales."

Since Ubisoft is a French company, which often separate their sales data from profit/loss details, the company will publish its "definitive sales figure for the third quarter" on February 15. By that point, the Just Dance franchise will have sold another several million copies.

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Mad Catz's Street Fighter X Tekken FightSticks have changed since we last saw them. Not only has the company abandoned the red-and-white colorway, there are now more sticks in the line.

The now-black FightStick Pro is the next evolution of the Tournament Edition stick, with Sanwa parts and internal cable storage. The Arcade FightStick VS. Edition seems to be similar in design, but two of them can be connected with an optional attachment to create a continuous arcade machine-style panel. And the new FightPad SD is 15% smaller than previous FightPads, "inspired by the gaming preferences of legendary Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono."

No prices were given for any of these new accessories, but Mad Catz did offer the expected release window: concurrent with the game's March 6 debut.

While our mom's word is good enough for us, others may have more fiscal ideas on what makes someone a success or not. For developer Vlambeer, it's neither -- they gauge success on how many crates iOS players have collected in Super Crate Box.

The developer has set up a number of tiers for unlocking free content in the game, the first being five million. Players quickly surpassed that and reached ten million, prompting this 1.1 update today which adds new control options (jump and shoot!) based on player feedback, and two new unlockable characters. One is unlocked after collecting 1000 crates, the other by reaching 5000 kills.

Finally, Vlambeer teases a new update when 40 million crates have been amassed. You'll also save a princess or something, but we're sure you've already done that once or twice in your lifetime.

Nyko's showcasing its latest line of accessories at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and we're sad to report nothing there is as insane as the Nyko Zoom Case.

The most exciting item at first glance is the Power Grip for PS Vita, pictured above. It promises to triple battery life for Sony's upcoming handheld -- and considering what Nyko did for 3DS battery life, we're willing to look past the ugly appendages. Other Vita accessories include a speaker stand and an all-in-one case, charger and USB cable combo.

In addition to that, there's a fanny pack to hold games (why?) and a battery pack for the Kindle Fire. Images of each item can be found in our gallery below; a price list is available past the jump.

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It would appear the "thing" at CES this year is iPhone/iPad controllers. Following the announcement of three such devices from iCade, SteelSeries has revealed the Ion Mobile Controller, a tiny control pad designed to work over Bluetooth with PCs, tablets, or phones. It has a full suite of buttons and analog sticks, and a rechargeable battery for up to 20 hours of use.

As is unfortunately the trend with these things, no list of compatible software has been announced. More details, including pricing, will be revealed as its Q3 release approaches.

Other accessories featured in SteelSeries' lineup include an "ultra-portable" headset and a bunch of different mice. It's CES! That's prime "here's a list of accessories" season.

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World of Goo developer 2D Boy has reached one million sales of its sticky puzzler across both Mac App Stores. In classic style for the indie developer, the duo are being highly transparent about where their sales came from. The breakdown:

• 69% of downloads (79% of revenue) from the Universal version
• 29% of downloads (17% of revenue) from the iPhone version
• 2% of downloads (4% of revenue) from the Mac App Store

"The Mac version has been out for a while and selling well," 2D Boy's Ron Carmel told us. That million only covers Mac iOS and OSX sales combined through their respective App Stores.

2D Boy also noted the free Android demo of Goo has been downloaded 450,000 times, and the full game has been purchased 70,000 times since its November launch.

Things are changing around here, but Chris, Justin and Ludwig are back together one last time for a classic Joystiq Podcast. Join our three heroes for one final romp as they talk through Joystiq's Top 10 of 2011 and Best of the Rest picks.

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Joystiq Podcast in iTunes
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[MP3] Download the MP3 directly

Hosts: Christopher Grant (@chrisgrant), Justin McElroy (@justinmcelroy), and Ludwig Kietzmann (@LudwigK)
Producer: Jonathan Downin (@jonathandownin - Game Thing Daily)
Music: "Gravity (Don't Let Me Go)" by Jon Black, "Red Eye" by Ben Kweller

Stream the show after the break.

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The Circle Pad Pro is expanding its leftward reach to include Kid Icarus: Uprising on the 3DS. Without the Circle Pad Pro, Uprising players will use the stylus to aim and rotate the camera (generally with their right hands) and the 3DS' built-in circle pad to move Pit on land. The Circle Pad Pro will allow left-handed players to aim with their dominant hand, while moving Pit with their right.

Producer Masahiro Sakurai didn't know the specs of the Circle Pad Pro before Monster Hunter Tri-G was announced, meaning he wasn't able "to do anything big with it in the time we had," he told Official Nintendo Magazine. Still, Sakurai said he probably wouldn't have used the Circle Pad Pro too much because it "would end up being just the same as controls on other platforms and I think the quick aiming possible with the touch panel suits the game best."

Right, "other platforms." Don't worry -- we know what you mean there, Sakurai.

Mass Effect 3 begins with a choice among three different game modes -- story, roleplaying or action -- that will affect how the campaign plays out for each person. As BioWare executive produer Casey Hudson explains it to Game Informer, these choices are basically difficulty and auto-fill settings for people who expect different things from the Mass Effect experience.

"You have to make a game with a certain design before you realize that there are different player types," Hudson said. "One of the surprising pieces of feedback was for some players, it's not that they don't like the story. They love story. In fact, the story is so important to them that they feel the story choices are intimidating.

"So all these settings do is that they set some of the options on the option screen before you've played it and know what those options mean. Once you get in and start playing, you can change things."

The story setting will make it more difficult to die and makes the action scenes easier, so players can mow through enemies, Hudson said. The action mode fills in default dialogue that grants players access to a lot of interesting things, but "it's not canon," Hudson said. "We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon."

If you decide to choose the inquisitive path, the rest of Hudson's interview is right here.

The PC version of Dustforce, the sweeping side-scroller from indie studio Hitbox Team, is set to launch January 17 for $9.99 on Steam, with a Mac update to follow soon after. Dustforce has more than 50 disgusting levels for your janitor to spruce up, and will have an online leaderboard, 4-player local multiplayer modes and a soothing original soundtrack.

Dustforce received an honorable mention from the IGF for Excellence in Visual Art, so even if cleaning isn't your thing, we bet you can still enjoy some pretty, stylized gameplay.

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