The Week in Review

This week we learn that BioWare can be forgiven for Mass Effect 3, pizza can now be a healthy meal and Robert Bowling’s new game will bridge games and the real world.

BioWare Reaps Forgiveness From FTC Complaint

You may not know who Spike Murphy is, but you almost certainly know what he did. He’s the guy who filed an official complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the ending of Mass Effect 3, which, as you may have heard, not everyone was entirely happy with. Murphy’s complaint was incredibly polarizing; some saw it as a legitimate and even necessary stand against a bumbling, indifferent corporate monolith, while to others it was simply gamer entitlement run wild. (Link)

Court Upholds Ban on Samsung Galaxy Tablet

Samsung recently faced a ban on sales of its tablet in the US, as a result of its ongoing patent dispute with Apple over alleged design similarities between the iPad and the Galaxy Tab. Samsung immediately filed a motion to stay, but its hopes were dashed. Not only is the ban still in place, but the judge also slapped an injunction on sales of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone. (Link)

Scientist Invents World’s First Perfectly Healthy Pizza

Pizza is a surprisingly complex food. It’s delicious, relatively easy to make, and can be created with a near infinite variety of toppings. You may prefer other meals, but the odds are pretty low that anyone will build specialized restaurants around them that deliver right to your doorstep. The only problem is that eating copious amounts of pizza on a regular basis lends itself to an early death via heart disease or diabetes. But since nobody in their right mind was ever going to stop eating pizza to prevent little things like heart attacks, a Scottish team at Glasgow University has done a great service to humankind: they designed “nutritionally balanced” pizzas that can be consumed for every meal without putting yourself into a coma. (Link)

Petition Demands Female Jarheads in Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Vasquez, Ferro and Dietrich were all state of the badass art in the 1986 flick Aliens, my favorite of the Alien franchise, but you won’t be able to play anyone quite like them in the upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines. Gearbox has apparently decided to make all playable characters exclusively male, and that just doesn’t sit right with a gamer by the name of Melissa K. So she did what people do when they’re aggrieved on the internet: she started a petition. “While we fully support Gearbox, we would like to request the inclusion of playable females. TheAliens franchise is dominated by strong females such as Ripley, Vasquez, Ferro, Dietrich and most importantly, The Queen,” the petition says. (Link)

Human Element to Use Real-World Resource Gathering

Former Infinity Ward creative strategist and Robotoki founder Robert Bowling is promoting his upcoming game Human Element, a zombie apocalypse game that will be both cross-platform and cross-genre. While details about the game are pretty scarce, Bowling recently opened up about cross-platform features he’d like to implement. Specifically, he wants to see the actions of mobile users in the real world impact how resources are gathered in the game world by linking Google Maps and Foursquare to your character. (Link)