BioShock Infinite is gonna hurt you like it's 1999. Developer Irrational Games announced this morning the "1999 Mode" for the upcoming RPG slash FPS, which appears to go beyond just messing with health stats for a more challenging game experience.

"I'm an old school gamer. We wanted to make sure we were taking into account the play styles of gamers like me," said Irrational's creative director Ken Levine. "So we went straight to the horse's mouth by asking them, on our website, a series of questions about how they play our games."

Levine continued, "94.6 percent of respondents indicated that upgrade choices enhanced their BioShock gameplay experience; however, 56.8 percent indicated that being required to make permanent decisions about their character would have made the game even better."

The 1999 Mode will apparently include unnamed tweaks and features that won't exist in the standard BioSchock Infinite experience. It will also "feature demanding weapon, power, and health management," along with a "Game Over" screen if the player lacks the resources for a respawn. The company is unlikely to cover incidental damages to property caused by playing 1999 Mode.

For a look at a roughed up version of Elizabeth from the newly revealed mode, head past the jump.

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A game called Wreckateer has been spotted in the Australian ratings classification system, listed as being developed by Iron Galaxy and published by Microsoft.

Iron Galaxy Studios is a company that's done a lot of technical consulting for other game developers -- it recently helped Capcom bring Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online to digital platforms, not to mention work on You Don't Know Jack.

According to its webpage, Iron Galaxy is also working on some yet-to-be-announced projects with Microsoft and Twisted Pixel, and it appears as though Wreckateer is at least one of those projects. That's all we know about the game thus far, other than that it's an original title, and it's been rated General for all audiences. Wreckateer, whatever it is, was just classified this week, so presumably we'll be hearing more about it soon.

Sculptor Kerry Dyer seems to be a purveyor of adorable sculptures and 3D art, and her latest conquest is the turian race from Mass Effect. Kerry created a few super-cute, sassy turian figurines like a pro, with a full rundown of the process on her blog.

Earlier today it was reported that VideoGamesPlus.ca had been hacked and 21,000 customers' account details were posted for all to see. Eurogamer obtained an email from the company to customers saying the site is "currently investigating a security issue" and is recommending folks to change their passwords.

The problems started when a hacker claimed he had the account details and posted them (since removed) on a file-sharing site. The details included customer names, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers and encrypted passwords.

Short version: If you're a VGP customer, change the password for any accounts that shared the same password.

Zynga's two latest games, Hidden Chronicles and the iOS-only Scramble With Friends, have failed to accumulate the same daily active user (DAU) totals as two of the social giant's previous releases, Castleville or Empires and Allies. This spells big trouble for the company's trading value and future growth, at least according to a report released by financial analysis group Cowen and Company.

Hidden Chronicles' 12 day post-launch DAU total of 710,000 is well below the over 5 million DAU figure reached by Empires and Allies and Castleville during their first 12 days of existence; similarly, Scramble With Friends has failed to penetrate the Top 20 barrier on the App Store. Historically, Zynga's DAU totals peak 3 months after a game has been released (according to the report), and while it's possible that both Hidden Chronicles and Scramble With Friends could slowly acquire a larger user base, there's nothing in Zynga's statistical history to make that extremely plausible.

Now, 710,000 daily users sounds like a ton of people, but Zynga has set the bar so high that it's not enough to keep the company's overall growth even: "The quarterly rate of DAU decline for Zynga's titles that are at least three months old has averaged 18.4 percent per quarter for the last two years," explained Doug Creutz of Cowen and Company. "Assuming Zynga averages a 20 percent quarterly rate of decline for titles beyond their launch windows in 2012, the company must add 9-10 million DAUs per quarter from new games just to keep total DAUs constant."

So basically, any game Zynga releases in 2012 has to achieve at least 5 million daily users in order for the company's user base to break even. In other news, Zynga has constructed a super-sonic ultra-high-altitude aircraft to recover the bar it's accidentally set for itself in the exosphere.

When Max Payne 3 arrives at retail later this year, its main protagonist will be equipped especially well for handling the flood of dudes shooting bullets at him over the course of the game's globetrotting campaign. And you will be as well, apparently, as the latest trailer aims to clarify.

After an exhaustive process of ... asking people to send in headshots and come to auditions, Gearbox has found its real-world Lilith analog for Borderlands 2 promotional events. Witness Australian model Yasemin Arslan's transformation into the Borderlands character, including creepy contact lenses, in the above video.

Next up: auditions for a real-life Claptrap.

We forgive you if you don't remember what Dear Esther is -- it's the Half-Life 2 mod turned commercial game set for release this Valentine's Day. What a perfect day for launch, as we're told the game is quite easy to fall in love with.

Streaming service Gaikai has finalized a deal to bring hardcore PC game demos to Facebook, following previous deals made with YouTube, Wal Mart and others. Gaikai said it has been working with Facebook for some time, and it sees this as a golden opportunity for both parties.

"Facebook already owns the category of casual gaming; we're going to help them own core games," founder David Perry said at Cloud Gaming Europe, GamesIndustry reports. "A click and boom, you're playing World of Warcraft."

Perry demoed World of Warcraft on Facebook, but later clarified to GameSpot that Gaikai "is NOT bringing WoW to Facebook (at least not in the foreseeable future)." Gaikai's approach to streaming games sees it in more of a marketing role than a game-provider, but introducing the Facebook audience to more hardcore opportunities shouldn't be a bad thing. Unless your mom starts sending you invites to join her guild page, "Massive Mamacitas."

If you need to be reminded about Prototype 2 periodically -- by, say, a tie-in iOS app or another promotional item -- we've got great news. Dark Horse will publish a bi-weekly comic series starting February 15.

The first issue, "The Anchor," catches up with Prototype 1's Alex Mercer. The second, "The Survivors," focuses on a few New York residents trying to get out of the city. And the third introduces Prototype 2 protagonist Sgt. James Heller.

The comics will be sold through digital.darkhorse.com. If these are successful, they might continue with all your favorite comic book tropes, like the universe-rebooting event and the Alien and Predator crossovers.

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