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Real men weep during Bruce Willis movies.

KEEPING Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki’s career alive is the 1998 Michael Bay disaster film Armageddon. In a speech at the recent DICE conference, the former Team Ninja leader revealed a story about Tecmo executives taking an unfinished build of DOA2 from him and releasing it in order to make the launch of the PlayStation 2. “I thought I would quit making games,” he said, devastated over the incident. Wired reports that, “He started staying home, drinking from morning until night. He’d cry as he watched the movie Armageddon over and over again with his then three-year-old daughter, listening to Aerosmith’s theme song ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.’” That helped get him through the rough patch. “No matter what anyone says, Aerosmith and Armageddon were the ones who saved my life, my company, my friends, and my family.” It’s OK, Itagaki-san. We cried at the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. P.S. We’re sorry if you clicked that Aerosmith link and now that song is stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Damn you, Stephen Tyler!

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Run towards the free money, Raz! Chase it down!

OFFERING To fund Psychonauts 2 for Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions is Minecraft creator and overnight rich guy Markus “Notch” Persson. After Schafer gave an interview in which he reiterated his desire to create a sequel to his critically acclaimed platformer but lamented a complete lack of publisher interest, the Minecraft Millionaire tweeted to Schafer, “Let’s make Psychonauts 2 happen,” and later added, “Also, I’m serious.” Apparently if the production happens, one of the levels will see Raz walk through the mind of Notch, which will look like the inside of a giant piggy bank. Seriously, the dude is swimming in cash, Scrooge McDuck–style.

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Only YOU can turn Tim Schafer’s life into this verb-driven hellscape for the duration of 2012.

EXTENDING Their middle fingers towards The Man, a.k.a. game publishers who think people don’t buy adventure games anymore, is the collective gaming community. The aforementioned Tim Schafer took to fundraising website Kickstarter with the goal of raising $400,000 to produce an old-school point-and-click adventure game. You know, the kind he’s justifiably worshipped for. Anyway, he and Double Fine hit their goal in a mere eight hours, and raised over one million eff-yous in the first day alone (the drive runs for 34 days total) – and over $1.5 million the first two days. So take note, publishers. The people have banded together.

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Yes, this is actually happening on April 3.

SENSING A disturbance in The Force on April 3 will be you, as that’s when onetime Great Hardcore Gamer Hope Kinect Star Wars finally releases. The motion-controlled Jedi title suffered a nasty delay just before the holidays, ruining the season for the many people wearing “Han Shot First” t-shirts who were eager to get their hands on the limited edition R2-D2–themed white Xbox 360 and Kinect. In addition to the release date, LucasArts announced all five game modes: Rancor Rampage, Podracing, Jedi Destiny, Duels of Fate, and Galactic Dance Off. We wish we were kidding about that last one.

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Meet True Crime: Sleeping Dogs...No wait, that's not it!

ANNOUNCED Um…again – sort of – was Sleeping Dogs, the open-world action sandbox game formerly known as True Crime: Hong Kong. Publisher Activision cancelled the title a year ago, saying “It just wasn’t going to be good enough,” leaving both the project and the developer, United Front Games, in limbo. Square Enix picked it up, and now United Front is finishing the game under its new moniker. We’re not sure about that title, though. When we heard it without context, we honestly thought it was a kid’s game based on some cartoon or a virtual pet simulator.